(ANS – Skhoder) – The Don Bosco Youth Centre in Skhoder, Albania is now in its 20th Year and the works at the centre are flourishing. The Oratory is open every day with about 600 young people on its books who come on a regular basis. That number rises to 1,000 for the Summer Games that run for three weeks with entertaining competitions, games, sports, dancing – the usual Salesian activities.

This year's theme for the games is “Freedom on the way to Rio” based on the cartoon film “Rio”, a clear reference to the 28th World Youth Day. The focus is on education through games and of course the password is “Rio”.

Among the youngsters who attend the Oratory, 35 are boarding boys who come from the poor outlying villages have gone home for the summer holidays except for a few who have stayed on to help the animators with the games. They love being there and are always reluctant to go home!

Directly after the games there will be three consecutive camps for the different age groups, with approximately thirty or forty children each week.

In August, when the weather is very hot, there will have another two weeks of summer evening games. The children enjoy it so much that many of them go both in June and August and they are always disappointed when the games are over. 

Fr. Michele Gentile continues to look after his large Parish. It covers an area of 40 square Kilometers and he has about 4,000 parishioners. In spite of all his work in the parish he still manages to look after his vegetable garden in the summer and now the fruits of his labours are ready to be enjoyed for this year.

Because of the very harsh and wet winters and because thw space is so limited, Salesians are thinking about constructing a roof/covering for the basket ball court to make it into an all purpose games court so that young people can continue to play outside all year round.

Odise Lazri, one of Albanian brothers and the first Missionary vocation is leaving the community in September to follow his vocation for the Missions to South Africa. “He will be very much missed by the community and also by all the children he has served here – stated Fr John Baptist Tran Tan Huy, Vietnamese missioner, Rector in Skhoder – Would anybody like to come and take his place and help us please?”.

Published on 04/07/2013