(ANS - Turin)- In the Ferrante Aporti juvenile prison in Turin there is a plaque commemorating the visits made by Don Bosco to the young prisoners there. Since it opened in 1845, almost all the chaplains have been Salesians. Fr Domenico Ricca has been chaplain there since 1979. The magazine Notizie of the Piedmont Region devoted an article to the Salesians to mark the Bicentenary of Don Bosco. In it they interviewed Fr Ricca  to get a better understanding of the difficulties of young people who commit crimes and the Salesian response to them.

Who are the young people in this area who have most difficulty in coping with life?

In general they are Italians who have nobody to care for them, and foreigners who are left completley to themselves. They are often invisible to the institutions, to school and to Christian communities. They  are left on the sidelines because they are  temperamentally unpredictable and they cause problems for  others.

What difficulties do you find in trying to approach them and what satisfaction do you get from it?

The response of the young people to our educational initiatives  often surprises us. as well as their readiness to accept others regardless of their situation or where they come from. The young people’s difficulties are often due to lack of preventive interventions, or  a family situation that failed to find time for them, or institutions incapable of accepting them just because they are immigrants.

What would Don Bosco’s priorities be today?

No doubt welcoming immigrants and caring for young people at a loose end because they have nowhere to study and no work. He would improve the vocational schools and rehabilitation programmes. He would spend a lot of time supporting education and he would not rest easy with a situation where  many young people are cut off from life because they are excluded from education.

Published  30/12/2014