News
Vides Main: integration or interaction
Torino (Italy)
During the last days of June, Vides Main held its annual evaluation, privileging the dimension of youth celebration and languages. "The Toy Store", a show in which children, boys and girls, adolescents, and mothers have a part, was an interesting test. On stage was the interaction of different ages and a great number of different cultures and backgrounds, holding in common a message that goes against the tide and that had accompanied the story from beginning to end. Through dance, words, mime, song, and acrobatics the actors communicated that solidarity is the most important wealth, and that what counts in life is not the colour of one's skin but having a heart capable of loving.
With a cheerful and festive spirit, the celebration of 'sending' took place at the conclusion of the formation journey of adolescents and young adults as animators of Youth Summer 2014. There were about 40 participants, full of enthusiasm, almost all of them coming from Salesian places and different countries. Through games and animation, they experienced the meaning of an educational relationship with children. Enriching was the witness of a credible community that had received them and helped them make emerge their most hidden aspirations for authenticity, freedom, solidarity, and commitment to service and volunteering.
Then there was the feast with the children, young people, and families of Spina 3, the last zone picked in District 5. For a number of years, the neediest youth and their families are accommodated in a 22 storey tower, an apartment building that has now become too small.
The last experience happened contemporaneously with the beginning of the Summer Centre. It was a sojourn at Cesana in Turin that was an occasion for vacation for many. This was an experience of friendship and novelty, where day by day they endeavoured to build the 'House of Peace'. The House of Peace arose from the intuition of Monica, the twin sister of Sr. Cristina Stara, who for years has been an educator of Vides Main. Today, she works at one of the Drug Addiction Centres in the city. She chose to give her vacation time to educate the young people to prevention. Monica made the little Chapel, the House of Peace, and used the dice of Love to make emerge from pages of the Bible, the values that unite us and allow us to see with a free spirit and love without prejudices.