(ANS - Rome)– The week of Support Nearer Home is repeated again this year from 16 – 22 March. The motto is "Support Nearer Home - Donate a Family to someone who does not have one."  The campaign is promoted by the Salesians in Italy to respond to some particularly urgent youth problems. This initiative is a real help to the many young people in Italy who live in poverty - economic, social, cultural, moral, emotional and spiritual. It is also intended as a mark of homage to Don Bosco in the year of the Bicentenary of his birth.

"Our priorities are the poorest young people, the least and the excluded (...). The clamour and the cry of pain of needy young people challenge us." These were the words of the Rector Major, Fr Ángel Fernández Artime, in his talk on 12 April 2014, at the end of the 27^th General Chapter.

The beneficiaries of Support Nearer Home are young people who are most in need - unaccompanied minors, young people who are resident in “family homes." They are obliged by law to leave these facilities when they reach the age of maturity, but they have nowhere to go because there is no family or safe place for them.

Fr Giovanni D'Andrea, President of Salesians in Social Services says: "In my job as coordinator of the National Office for the Marginalized and Disadvantaged, I receive many requests for help that come to our Confreres all over Italy.  Through the Salesians engaged in Social Services we try to give a concrete response to appeals from public bodies, but this is not enough anymore! We need to find other resources, as Don Bosco did."

This week of solidarity has been planned for the season of Lent, when we are encouraged strongly to pay more attention to the people most in need. From 16 - 22 March, Salesian communities that are part of the initiative are invited to create awareness and raise funds through various activities in Churches, oratories, schools and vocational training centres.

For more information write to: ilariamaria@salesianiperilsociale.it

Published 09/03/2015