(ANS – Madrid) – “War never brings peace,” writes Mbapina Saliki, a little girl from the Don Bosco Centre at Bangui in the Republic of Central Africa. She said this in an essay that describes the horrors of the violence that has afflicted her country since last March. “There is sadness in every corner but we are still in the same condition as we were before the war” – words of a Salesian missionary in Damascus in Syria, which echo what the little girl said. These are but two examples, but they could be applied to more than 20 countries where violence is the only reality facing the people.

India, Sudan, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Nigeria... the list has one common denominator: the suffering of the people, especially the women and children. The Salesian Mission Office in Madrid is committed to promoting the education of children and young people, because we believe that education is the best instrument to bring about peaceful co-existence among peoples.

Holistic education, to values, tolerance and respect, is the best way to achieve an unconditional peace that will last. Salesians are working in several countries afflicted by war. “We have decided to stay with the young people,” a Salesian missionary explained when war broke out in the Republic of Central Africa.  In some countries Salesians act as mediators, as for example in East Timor and Colombia. In other places they work in refugee camps, as in Palestine, Kenya e Ruanda. Sometimes they are persecuted simply because they are Catholic, as in Pakistan or the Philippines.

On the International Day of Peace, which will be celebrated tomorrow, 21 September, the Salesian Mission Office in Madrid asks the international community to work for peace, to eradicate inequality and to build a more just world.

Published 20/09/2013