(ANS - Istanbul) - Basima Toma teaches English to approximately forty children in the Don Bosco Youth Centre in Istanbul. In 2012, Basima, her husband, and their four children left their home in Baghdad. They are Chaldean Catholics. In Baghdad, businesses owned by Christians were being attacked and destroyed and Basima was increasingly concerned about the safety of her children. One of her daughters was the only Christian in her class. "Now I do not fear for my children”, she says. “I sleep and I'm not afraid when they are not with me."

"Here we do not ask anyone what religion they are or to what political movement they belong" says the Salesian missionary Fr Andrés Calleja, Director of the Don Bosco Youth Centre.

The Salesian centre in Istanbul opened its doors twenty years ago as a temporary response to the wave of refugees from Iraq. The conflict in the region continues and new refugees and asylum seekers arrive every day. Today there are 300 children enrolled in the centre, mostly from Iraq and Syria. The centre is funded mainly by benefactors of the Salesian Mission Offices in the world and provides free assistance and training to students and their families.

Like Basima, most of the teachers of the school are refugees or asylum seekers. Fr Calleja says that "this helps the young people because teachers have been through the same situation and can understand what the students have suffered. They speak Arabic, which is also a help."

In addition to giving the children and young people an opportunity to study English, mathematics and computer science, the centre is also "a place of joy where the children can play and sing," says the Salesian. Many of them have never been to school or have been there very seldom, because of the wars in the area. We try to give them some regularity, so that, after one, two, three years, when they arrive in another country, they will not have missed out on continuity in school."

The case of Sarah Mohammed is typical. She is a fourteen year-old who left her home in Aleppo, Syria, about a year ago. After an explosion near her school, she was told not to go back: it was not safe. Now Sarah is enrolled in the Don Bosco Youth Centre, together with her younger sister. She speaks English and has also learned Turkish. She dreams of going to college and becoming an engineer.

Fr Calleja hopes and prays that the wars will end and people can live in peace. Meanwhile, he believes that "the Centre responds to a critical need. The community environment, the joyous atmosphere of freedom and tolerance is already healing many wounds."

Published 30/06/2015