BOSCO BOYS

THE SALESIANS OF DON BOSCO are a worldwide organization working over 136 countries around the world with an aim of empowering the young people. Since 1875 a large spiritual family has grown out of Don Bosco’s experience. Numerous groups look up to him as a spiritual father as they try to spread the Gospel throughout the world. The Salesian Society represents the group which Don Bosco personally established to launch new approaches and new initiatives for the education of youth. But there are now many groups in the Salesian Family that have a wide influence in the world: the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (Salesian Sisters - FMA), Salesian Cooperators, Past Pupils of Don Bosco (Don Bosco Alumni), and Don Bosco Volunteers (BOVA). These groups are at work on behalf of young people in every corner of the world.
All the groups within Don Bosco’s spiritual Family share his educational method, popularly called "The Preventive System". It is not a system at all, but a lifestyle, an educational approach, a pastoral method, and a spiritual heritage. Significantly, Don Bosco’s example and educational methods have inspired a Gospel lifestyle which leads to holiness of life, as witnessed in the lives of Saints who have embraced Don Bosco's experience and made it their own.
The Salesians can be found worldwide in many different initiatives on behalf of young people: schools, oratories, youth centers, technical and professional training centers, parishes, missions, and activities in the realm of mass media and social communications.
We are a worldwide organization, caring for the needs of poor and abandoned children and trying to make this world a better place. Since the congregation has been founded in 1859 our mission spread to 136 countries with over 100,000 Salesian priests, brothers, sisters and lay people which makes us the third largest Catholic religious order in the world.
The founder of the congregation of the Salesians was called Don Giovanni Bosco, an Italian priest who took up the challenge to empower the needy youth. He put all his efforts in helping young boys with difficult backgrounds who seemed not to fit into the society. His idea was, to help these boys to become good followers of Christ and honest citizens by giving them the love of a father and a strong faith in God.
To give his work a chance to continue after his death, Don Bosco gathered a number of priests and lay people together to found a religious congregation in the Catholic Church. He called this congregation the Salesian Society. It was named after St. Francis de Sales who was known for his kind and gentle manner, a trait which Don Bosco wanted his Salesians to acquire. He also chose Mary Help of Christians, as the patroness of the Salesian Society.
Don Bosco’s mission was always clear and simple: to be a friend to children who seem to be less favoured by the fate than their brothers and sisters. A friend, who is loving, helping and accepting the children the way they are.