Salesian Missionary Volunteering


Salesian Missionary Volunteering

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SALESIAN MISSIONARY
VOLUNTEERING

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VOLUNTEERING
IN THE
SALESIAN Identity and
Orientation of
MISSION Salesian
Missionary
Volunteering
Department for Youth Ministry
Department for the Missions
Rome 2019
SALESIAN MISSIONARY
VOLUNTEERING

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ABBREVIATIONS
EPC: Educative and Pastoral Community
FRSYM: Frame of Reference Salesian Youth Ministry
GC: General Chapter of the Salesians of Don Bosco
MA: Missionary Animation
MB: (Memorie Biografiche) Biographical Memoirs
OPP: Overall Provincial Plan
PDMA: Provincial Delegate for Missionary Animation
PSEPP: Provincial Salesian Educative and Pastoral Plan
RCMA: Regional Coordinator for Missionary Animation
SEPP: Salesian Educative and Pastoral Plan
SMV: Salesian Missionary Volunteering
SYM: Salesian Youth Movement
YM: Youth Ministry
UNGA: United Nations General Assembly
UNV: United Nations Volunteers Program
Prepared by:
Departament for Youth Ministry
Departament for the Misssions
Design & Printing:
Artia Comunicación Gráfica
Extra Commercial Edition - 2019
Sede Centrale Salesiana:
Via Marsalla, 42 - 00185 Rome
CONTENTS
PRESENTATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1. Incentives for further reflection on volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2. The recipients of the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3. Options and priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4. A volunteer with a clear and inclusive identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
I VOLUNTEERING TODAY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1. The present phenomenon of volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2. Criticisms, risks, misunderstandings and opportunities . . . . . . 34
3. Volunteering and education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4. Volunteering and human rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5. Volunteering and religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
6. Volunteering in the Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
7. Volunteering in the Congregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
II IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSSIONARY
VOLUNTEERING (SMV). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
1. Definition of Salesian Missionary Volunteering (SMV). . . . . . . . . 48
1.1. Clarifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
1.2. Three words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2. Theological aspects of volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.1. The mission is born of love. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.2.A Church which “goes forth” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.3. The missionary discipleship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.4.The missionary volunteer: an experience of love. . . . . . . . . 52
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a. A free love that liberates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
b. A love that gives itself for free . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
c. A love that becomes service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
d. A love that endures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.5. Eucharist: sacrament of love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.6. Mary: icon of volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3. Volunteering in the Salesian tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.1. Don Bosco. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.2. The lay and young people as protagonists in Valdocco . . . . 58
3.3. A paradigmatic case: the cholera epidemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.4. A vast organised charity movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.5. The missionary fire seizes young people. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.6. The proposal of Don Bosco continues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.7. Salesian spirituality and volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
a. Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
b. Communion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
c. Mysticism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
III TYPES, CHARACTERISTICS
AND PROFILE OF SMV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
1. Types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
1.1. Various realities that are called vounteering . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
a. Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
b. Civil Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
c. Internship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
d. Solidarity tourism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
e. Cultural exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
f. Volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
1.2. According to the place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
a. Local volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
b. National volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
c. International volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
1.3. According to the duration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
a. Brief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
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b. Continued. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
c. Intense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
d. Long . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
1.4. According to age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
a. Education towards volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
b. Initiation to volunteering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
c. Youth engagement age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
d. Adulthood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
1.5. According to the inclusion in the religious community . . . . 81
a. Within the community. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
b. Community of volunteers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
c. External to the community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
1.6. According to the form of organisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
a. Salesian Missionary Volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
b. Volunteering of NGOs or other
institutions related to Salesians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
c. Volunteering of NGOs or other non-Salesian civil
or ecclesial institutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
• Operative criteria and standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
2. Characteristics of SMV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
2.1. Lay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.2.Youthful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.3. Missionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.4.Salesian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.5. Educational. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.6. Sociopolitical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.7. Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
3. Possible volunteering activities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4. Profile of the volunteer of SMV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.1. The motivations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.2.Personal maturity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.3. Christian maturity .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.4.Professionalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.5. Salesianity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
• Operative criteria and standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
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IV A PROCESS IN THE YOUTH MINISTRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
1. A process, a school of life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
2. Stages of volunteering path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3. A community that sends and that receives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4. Formation in SMV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.1. Formative criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.2.Three stages in formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
a. Formation before volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
b. Formation during the volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
c. Formation after volunteering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
• Operative criteria and standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5. Accompaniment in SMV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.1. The meaning of accompaniment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.2. Before . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
a. An accompanying environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
b. Group accompaniment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
c. Personal accompaniment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.3. During . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
a. An accompanying environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
b. Group accompaniment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
c. Personal accompaniment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.4. After . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
a. An accompanying environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
b. Group accompaniment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
c. Personal accompaniment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
• Operative criteria and standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
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V ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURES OF SMV. . . . . . . . 120
1. The Community that sends. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
1.1. The local community level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
a. The Rector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
b. The local missionary animator, contact person of SMV .. 123
1.2. The Provincial level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
a. The Provincial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
b. The Provincial Project of SMV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
c. The Provincial Delegate for Missionary Animation . . . 125
• Operative criteria and standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
2. The Community that welcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
2.1. The Rector as the first local Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
2.2.The Provincial. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
2.3. The Provincial Project of SMV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
2.4.The PDMA with his SMV team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
2.5. Profile of the community that welcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
• Operative criteria and standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
3. Salesian Missionary Volunteering and NGOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
3.1. Types of NGOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
3.2. Opportunities of NGOs in the Salesian mission . . . . . . . . . . 134
3.3. NGOs and the SMV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
• Operative criteria and standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4. Some practical aspects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4.1. Legal aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4.2.Economic and logistical aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
• Operative criteria and standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
5. Animation of SMV at inter-provincial and world level . . . . . . . . . 143
5.1. Regional or national animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
5.2. World level animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
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PRESENTATION
We are glad to present the handbook entitled ‘Volunteering in
the Salesian Mission. Identity and Orientation of Salesian Missionary
Volunteering’.
This handbook is the final fruit of a journey begun in 2015, together with the
Departments of Youth Ministry and Missions, which in turn derives from a
previous collaboration made with the previous documents on volunteering:
Volunteering and Salesian Mission (1995) and Voluntary Service in the Salesian
Mission (2006–2008). This present document is the fruit of the contributions
and experiences of all the regions of the Congregation, wherein meetings
between Youth Ministry and Missionary Animation reflected upon the
current situation, perspectives and identity of volunteers in the various
provincial realities. Contributors were Salesians and lay experts from the
many Provinces committed to volunteering.
The handbook is sensitive to the richness of ecclesial teaching, in
particular to the Synod of Bishops on Young People, the Faith and
Vocational Discernment (2018), and is carried out in the light of the Frame
of Reference of Salesian Youth Ministry (2014).
The present document is rich in its sociological, theological and Salesian
reflections, offering valuable points for study and developing. Therefore,
it is precious material for the formation of Salesians and lay people,
which the Congregation opportunely puts in our hands when we are
being asked the urgent and hopeful question of the GC 28: “What kind
of Salesians for the youth of today?”
The Salesian
Missionary
Volunteering starts
from a universal
conception of
volunteering
based on four
essential points:
gratuitousness,
freedom, solidarity
and continuity
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It is built on a universal concept of volunteering based on four essential
points: gratuitous, freely-given, supportive and continuous. In this
way, we want to distinguish volunteering from so many other initiatives
linked to solidarity, cooperation and cultural exchange but which are
not precisely volunteering.
In addition, considering the breadth of the theme of volunteering, for
its enormous diversification according to the different contexts in the
Congregation, we have focused on Salesian Missionary Volunteering (SMV).
This kind of volunteering is at the same time a horizon in which other
forms of volunteering in the Salesian mission may find inspiration and a
concrete proposal that a number of Provinces are already carrying out
or beginning to implement. SMV takes for granted, in the first place on
the part of the SDBs, a clear Salesian charismatic identification and a
conscious and passionate participation in the ecclesial mission of the
announcement of Jesus Christ to the world today. To this, in concrete
terms, is added an availability of service of at least one year.
Certainly, this option for SMV may seem exclusive of other realities,
based on gradual processes of faith or because of the impossibility of a
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prolonged dedication to this type of volunteering. The Salesian mission
will know wisely how to offer opportunities to live the gift of self to our
young people, with a variety of proposals adapted to their situation. This,
in turn, does not prevent us proposing possible and more demanding
paths of youthful sanctity in our pastoral work to young people who, being
already with Don Bosco, aspire more. For this more concrete proposal,
the document offers criteria, norms, itineraries, structures and more in
order to make it operational, which, for similar volunteering proposals, may
be useful. We believe that this current and fruitful proposal is capable of
renewing the youth and vocational ministry with a new missionary spirit.
We ask the Provincials, the delegates of Missionary Animation, the
delegates of Youth Ministry and other persons responsible for provincial
voluntary work to study the document, share it and make operational its
orientations and criteria according to the provincial realities.
31st January 2019, Feast of St John Bosco
Fr Fabio Attard SDB
(General Councillor for Youth Ministry )
Fr Guillermo Basañes SDB
(General Councillor for the Missions)
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PREFACE
[1] The Rector Major and his Council, in the plan of animation and
government for the sexennium (2014–2020), asked the Departments
for Youth Ministry and Missionary Animation to review the document
Volunteering in the Salesian Mission. Handbook and Guidance Manual
of 2008, with the intention of updating the said instrument in
the light of the ‘Frame of Reference of Salesian Youth Ministry ’1.
The document is the result of the process of reflection and analysis of
the praxis, carried out by the Provincials responsible for volunteer service,
the Provincial Delegates for Youth Ministry and the PDMA (Provincial
Delegates of Missionary Animation). In this process, the regional meetings
of the Delegates for the Youth Ministry and of the Missionary Animation
between 2015 and 2016 in the different areas of the Congregation (Addis
Ababa, Quito, Bangalore, Seoul, Compostela, Rome) have been decisive
for the elaboration of this manual. From these meetings the wealth
and challenges of volunteering in the current Salesian mission in the
different cultural contexts have been examined. An in-depth snapshot
of the diverse experiences of volunteering in the Congregation and of
their expectations was obtained.
[2] In the light of the Synod of Bishops on young people, faith and vocational
discernment, we are challenged to offer young people the itinerary of
volunteering as an encounter with Christ, who calls upon us to a full life
through service.
Often the young are sensitive to the dimension of diakonia. Many
are actively committed in voluntary work and they find in service
1 Acts Of The General Council, 419 (September–December 2014).
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the way to encounter the Lord. Dedication to the lowliest thus
becomes a practice of faith, in which one discovers the love “in
loss” that is at the heart of the Gospel and the foundation of the
whole Christian life. The poor, the lowly, the sick, the elderly,
are the suffering body of Christ: hence to place oneself at their
service is a way of meeting the Lord and a privileged space for
discernment of one’s vocation2.
The handbook of Salesian Missionary Volunteering will be developed
as follows:
[3] An introduction that motivates the importance and opportunity of
reflection on volunteering in the Salesian mission today. For the recipients
of the handbook, options and priorities are indicated. A Provincial project
on volunteering inserted in the process of Youth Ministry, which offers
appropriate formation and accompaniment, is proposed. One point of
insistence of the document is to underline the clear missionary and
Salesian identity of volunteering. This proposal is contextualised in a
broader framework of volunteering in the Salesian mission.
[4] The first chapter analyses the phenomenon of Volunteering today,
its tendencies, its geography, its peculiarities according to cultures.
An interdisciplinary approach to volunteering from different sciences
shows its richness and complexity. The valid reflections and studies on
volunteering carried out by the United Nations are considered, which
2 Synod Of Bishops of XV Ordinary General Assembly (3–28 October 2018). Final Document on Youth,
faith and vocational discernment, 137.
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help us to have a more universal and clearer understanding of what
volunteering is in a more shared sense. In this chapter, volunteering is
related to education, to human rights, to religion. Briefly, the ecclesial
magisterium and that of the Salesian Congregation offer us a Christian
and charismatic perspective. Finally, a sociological study carried out
for the handbook with former volunteers at the service of the Salesian
mission offers illuminating conclusions for our reflection.
[5] The second chapter: The Identity of Salesian Missionary Volunteering
(SMV) is the key to understanding the basic options of volunteering and
the handbook. After having considered a universal vision of volunteering
(gratuitous, freely given, supportive, continuous), we focus, within that
universe, upon the richness of our Salesian specificity. The document
chooses not to treat all the variety of possible voluntary work, as well as
other forms of solidarity of activities within our Salesian mission. The
option focuses on SMV as a prototype and paradigm for other forms of
volunteering and as a desirable goal in the YM process. This option is based
on theological and Salesian reflections. Abundant considerations from the
historical, theological-spiritual point of view model the identity of the SMV.
[6] The third chapter analyses the typologies of social and justice/solidarity
interventions, different types of volunteering according to the place, the
duration, age in relation to the inclusion in the religious community and
according to its organisational form. The objective is to clarify certain
terminological confusion in relation to volunteering at times confused
with cooperation, civil service, cultural exchange, internships and justice/
solidarity tourism. There are also various possibilities and ways of carrying
out volunteering, with the SMV proposal of volunteering long-term (at
least one year) and, when possible, carried out in a different context from
their own. The chapter also deals with the characteristics of SMV (lay,
youth, missionary, Salesian, educational, sociopolitical, community), its
possible activities and the profile of the volunteer (motivations, personal
and Christian maturity, professionalism and Salesianity).
[7] The fourth chapter inserts volunteering into a broader process of Youth
Ministry. SMV is not an improvised product; it is a process that has
16
matured, normally within Youth Ministry, in the Salesian Youth Movement,
in educational experiences of charitable service, taking gradual steps
in commitment and voluntary service.
There is a long-term preparation and a more immediate one. The
community dimension is underlined as a place of growth, of sending and
receiving the volunteer. In a very broad way, a formative and voluntary
accompaniment proposal is made in the three periods covered: Before,
During and After. Each of these stages has its own contents, activities
and dynamics. The accompaniment is insisted on its various levels:
environment, group and individual. The process leads to a Christian
discernment about the life and vocational project in the Church and
society.
[8] The fifth and last chapter deals with the organisation and structure
of the SMV. The protagonists of the volunteering process are clearly
identified: the community that sends, in which the local community
benefits from the Rector, the missionary animator and a representative of
the local SMV. At the Province level, it refers to the role of the Provincial,
the provincial project of SMV and the Provincial Delegate for Missionary
Animation (PDMA). We also find the community that welcomes with
equivalent roles. Then there is a section dealing with the relationship
between the SMV and the NGOs (Salesian, Salesian-inspired or those
collaborating with the Salesian mission). Some practical aspects are
seen in the fulfilment of the volunteer service (legal, economic, logistic,
insurance, documentation, accommodation). Finally, there is a discussion
about the animation of SMV at an inter-provincial and world level, where
synergy and cooperation in formation and exchange is explored.
The conclusion gives the volunteer a more transcendent orientation,
seen as a journey and stimulus of youthful sanctity.
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VOLUNTEERING IN THE SALESIAN MISSION
1 Incentives for further
reflection on volunteering
[9] There are various elements that motivate us and challenge us to reflect
and rethink volunteering in our Salesian mission.
[10]
[11]
• The social, cultural, economic and religious situations are
always in constant flux: the growth of the phenomenon of
globalisation in various fields and, paradoxically, the affirmation
of nationalism and populism; the unprecedented and impressive
phenomenon of migration, especially forced by armed conflicts,
human rights violations, climate change, flight from misery and
human trafficking; the growth of the arms race; the various
cultural currents that defy Christian anthropology, such as the
ideology of gender; the spread of various forms of secularism,
being indifferent or even hostile to the religious phenomenon;
the development of postmodern religious forms, with
marked fragmentary subjectivism, as well as various types of
fundamentalism. All these require a contextualised reflection.
• Reflections and studies on volunteering. Among the immense
literature produced in these ten years in various fields such as
sociology, psychology, education, law, economics, development,
theology, etc., the first global reports on the status of volunteering
prepared by the United Nations (2011, 2015) stand out. In particular,
a long-term sociological study of volunteering in the last decade
that has been promoted in the Congregation and given to 427 former
volunteers, offers extremely interesting conclusions.
• The changing geography of volunteering. Volunteering was
traditionally regarded as a manifestation of the developed
countries of Europe and North America, but now there is a growing
awareness, examples and varied experiences of volunteering in the
various continents.
• The rich Magisterium of Saint John Paul II on volunteering, enriched
by Benedict XVI and now by Pope Francis, offers us incentives for
20
commitment and reflection for a church that goes forth, as expressed
in the Evangelii Gaudium and the Synod on Young People which has
seen in volunteering a path of social commitment and experience of
faith. It also offers us a patron for volunteering: St Teresa of Calcutta,
giving a model of volunteering promoted by the Catholic Church.
• The Salesian Congregation in its previous General Chapters (GC
26 and GC 27), in continuity with GC 24, has constantly supported
volunteering, especially in relation to the theme of evangelisation
and missionary spirit, to which the Church and Congregation are
called by their vocation.
• The bicentenary of the birth of Don Bosco has offered us the
opportunity of a greater knowledge of Don Bosco’s history,
pedagogy and spirituality, opening new charismatic insights in
relation to youth ministry and volunteering.
• The pastoral journeys of the Provinces in the last ten years have
been notably changed. There are places in which the voluntary
proposal has significantly diminished or changed its methodology,
while in others, it has grown or has maintained its vitality.
2 The recipients of this
document
[12]
This present document aims to offer elements of formation to better
understand and encourage the phenomenon of volunteering in its
Christian and Salesian specificity. Likewise, it offers concrete orientations
to implement in the pastoral proposals of Salesian presences.
This handbook is addressed for all those who in one way or another
are involved in the Salesian mission, as well as a contribution to local
churches, to offer young people life plans that fulfil their personal and
Christian vocations.
• To the Salesians of Don Bosco, charismatic animators of the
educative and pastoral communities. They are called to know and
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VOLUNTEERING IN THE SALESIAN MISSION
promote volunteering in general and the charismatic wealth of SMV
in particular. In this way it will be a valuable instrument to help the
discernment in sending and receiving volunteers, particularly long-
term ones, as well as for their formation and accompaniment.
• To Salesian NGOs as co-responsible partners of volunteering
within YM, being able to assume in whole or in part, or adapt in a
timely manner, contents of this handbook.
• All educators and pastoral agents who are committed to young
people, so that they present this valuable proposal to the recipients
of the mission.
• To our young people, who question themselves in giving something
more to others and to the Lord, to young people who want to
intensely live their vocation of service through volunteering,
building their life project.
3 Options and priorities
[13]
As a result of the regional meetings of the Departments for Youth Ministry
and for Missions and consultations with those involved in missionary
volunteering, some options, priorities and operational orientations for
our mission have emerged. These elements are not new, but they have
been identified because they are considered to be priorities.
[14]
• Volunteering fully within the process of Youth Ministry. The
fruitfulness or failure of volunteering will depend on the extent to
which the experience is a mature fruit of Youth Ministry. Therefore,
there is an urgent need for an organic ministry in which missionary
animation walks in harmony with Youth Ministry and knows how
to make valid proposals with continuity. This involves looking at
volunteering as a process with a ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’.
• Formation and Accompaniment are two key words in this process.
A long-term formation starting from pre-adolescent mission groups
to committed university students. An intense immediate formation,
from the psychological, sociopolitical-cultural, theological-pastoral,
Salesian point of view.
22
[15]
• In this process, the theme of “gradualness” has been emphasised.
One cannot approve just any type of volunteering experience. It
is necessary to respect the processes, offering progressive
experiences according to the freedom of young people. This
implies, particularly for long-term international volunteering,
a need for a previous journey of local volunteering, to help
young people to mature from a human, Christian, Salesian and
professional point of view.
• A clear Salesian identity has been insisted upon. It has been decided
to give priority to Salesian Missionary Volunteering. This indicates the
importance of the acquaintance of the volunteers with the Salesian
identity. In the countries traditionally called “of missions”, where
volunteers were welcomed, there has been much emphasis on the
need for the witness of Christian life, the Oratorian heart and the
missionary passion of the volunteers. Therefore, the life of faith of
the volunteer is not just a random element but an essential part of
the experience of the mission.
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VOLUNTEERING IN THE SALESIAN MISSION
[16]
[17]
• In this sense, the theme of volunteering cannot be reduced to the
subjective experience of the volunteer, which normally ends up
being very enriching for the volunteer. However, it is necessary
to consider the educational impact on the beneficiaries of our
mission. This requires maturity, the testimony of faith and the
professionalism of volunteers. At the same time, the Salesian
mission has a repercussion on the styles, values and models of
life that the volunteers are carrying.
• Volunteering has been spoken of as a privileged form of education
to faith that leads to a higher degree of Christian life, helping young
people to develop a life plan, a vocational option. A sign of this is
that some provinces have entrusted vocation animation, missionary
animation and volunteering to a person with sole responsibility for its
promotion. This in turn offers assured quality to the SMV proposal.
• A Provincial project of missionary volunteering, with a clear
directory (practical rules), persons responsible at the provincial
and local level, provincial criteria for selection, training,
accompaniment of volunteers, criteria for relations with other
voluntary institutions and NGOs is needed. This provincial
organisation has been seen as very important in creating a
coherent and continuous project of volunteering. The volunteering
project is an instrument for both the sending and the receiving
provinces. It must be a project that fits organically in the provincial
and local community.
• The issue of local communities and Rectors has been highlighted.
The importance of welcoming, witnessing and accompanying the
volunteer by the Salesian community has been stressed. It is
necessary to create a welcoming culture in our homes for the young
volunteers, who are both beneficiaries and collaborators of our
mission. The presence of young people in our communities demands
from the Salesian community a religious life that is coherent, stable
and given to young people.
• In considering Salesian Missionary Volunteering, we focus on what
is fulfilled in a Salesian community, or in relation to it, for at least
a year. This document will take into account this perspective of
long-term volunteering.
24
4 A volunteer with a clear and
inclusive identity
[18]
These options and priorities could give the impression of a certain
elitism in the face of the issue of Salesian volunteering. It is not so.
Volunteering is an instrument, a dynamic, highly educational experience
and is adaptable to any environment and to any type of target audience.
It is seen in strongly secularised contexts, places with a non-Catholic
or Christian majority, in contexts where young people are just emerging
from marginalised situations.
Volunteering is, and continues to be, an excellent opportunity for dialogue
with the world and cultural diversity. So that through a free, generous
volunteer service, bridges of encounter, cohesion and dialogue are
established.
This educational and cohesive proposal must be carried out and
encouraged in every context and to any young person as a fundamental
educational journey and as a way of proclaiming the doctrine of justice
and human dignity that gradually prepares for the Gospel.
This complete educational-pastoral openness does not contradict
a diversified proposal. Within an educational process, a volunteer
respects the gradualness, the identity and the options of the diverse
beneficiaries. Considering that the universe of volunteering is vast, a
Salesian community will be able to find the right place, according to
the opportunity, for a variety of proposals and styles of volunteering or
other realities of cooperation and solidarity. Indeed, there can be several
different models of volunteering existing within a province, among which
there is SMV.
[19] The proposal of SMV is not opposed to other realities, which are a
richness for the Salesian mission, such as exclusively social volunteering,
cooperation, civil service, internships, cultural exchange, recruitment
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of qualified staff, professional practices, etc. In all this, it is necessary
to have a clear identification of the diverse realities that coexist in the
mission, knowing when to give due space and accompaniment, each
according to their own nature. Each local and provincial community shall
study the opportunities and models of these various contributions and
ascertain to what extent they can help carry out the Salesian mission
faithfully.
This attitude, typical of Don Bosco, of knowing how to involve different
people and initiatives in his project for young people in view of a greater
good is not inconsistent with a robust Salesian missionary voluntary
service proposal to those young people who try to live a “high standard
of Christian life” in generous service. It is the responsibility of Salesians
to be able to spread the joy of evangelising and to propose with apostolic
passion the pedagogy of holiness, of love for Jesus Christ and for the
neediest of young people, according to the dream of Don Bosco.
SCHEME OF THE VARIOUS FORMS
OF COLLABORATION AND SOLIDARITY.
Volunteering, as a universal value, is one of the various forms of
solidarity. In the Salesian context there are also different forms
of social action and solidarity. Volunteering shares universal
values such as gratuitous, freely given, solidarity and continuity
of service. In turn, within volunteering in the Salesian Mission,
we find Salesian Missionary Volunteering, which emphasises a
clear Christian-missionary and Salesian option, with a long-term
commitment to service.
26
DIFFERENT FORMS OF SOLIDARITY
AND COLLABORATION
• Civil Service
• Cultural Exchange
• Solidarity Tourism
• Internships
• Technical advice
• Volunteering
• Donations
• Offers
• Others
VOLUNTEERING
(Gratuitous, freely given, solidary, continuous)
DIFFERENT Inspiring principles.
DIFFERENT organizational forms.
DIFFERENCE of places, of times, of ages.
DIFFERENT modes, targets, recipients.
VOLUNTEERING IN THE
SALESIAN MISSION
Different forms of Cultural, social, sporting, religious,
educational, professional voluntary service. Different ages,
places, methods, times. Variety of organizations.
SALESIAN
MISSIONARY
VOLUNTEERING
SMV
MORE REALITIES SUPPORTIVE
OF THE SALESIAN MISSION
Cooperation, Civil service, Cultural exchange,
Fund raising, NGOs, Internships,
Solidarity tourism, Others.
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TO
VOLUNTEERING
I TODAY
A
Y

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1 The present phenomenon
of volunteering
[20] The awareness of the phenomenon of volunteering has seen considerable
development in recent decades. In 2011, there were an estimated 140
million1 people were established in some form of volunteering. This
reality is the object of several studies from different interdisciplinary
perspectives (sociology, education, economics, psychology, theology,
politics, law, anthropology, etc.)2.
[21] One aspect that has become more apparent is the universality of
volunteering and its various expressions in the most diverse cul-
tures. Volunteering has mostly been identified as an initiative and
1 Gallup World Poll (GWP) Gallup world poll (2011); the project of comparative study on the non-profit sec-
tor Johns Hopkins, Cited in the United Nations Volunteers Program (UNV) 2011. State of the World’s
Volunteerism Report 2011. Universal Values for Global Well-being (UNV 2011).
2 Here are some representative titles of volunteering in relation to different approaches and different contexts:
Hirst A, Links between volunteering and employality (London 2001). Hustinx L., Handy F., Cnaan R.A.,
Volunteering; in Taylor (Ed), Third sector research (Springer, New York, NY, 2010) 73–89. Larson R.W.,
Hansen D.M, Moneta G., Differing profiles of developmental experiences across types of organised youth
activities, Developmental Psychology (2006) 42(5) 849-863. Lum T.Y., Lightoot E., The effects of volunteering
on the physical and mental health of older people, Research on Agning (2005) 27(1), 31–55. Maynnard S.,
Volunteerism: An old concept, a new business model for scaling microfinance and technology for development solutions
(Washington, DC 2010). McGillvray M., Clarke M., Understanding human well-being (Tokyo 2006). Mejis
L.C.P.M., Van der Voort J.M., Corporate volunteering: From the charity to profit- non-profit partnerships,
Australian Journal of Volunteering (2004) 9(1) 21–32. Melville I, Musevenzi J., Feasibility study on a national
volunteer mechanism and a youth volunteer scheme. Zimbabwe (Bonn 2008). Musick M., Wilson J., Volunteers:
A social profile (Bloomington, IN 2008). Patel L., Perold H., Mohamed S.E., Carapinha R., Five country
study on service and volunteering in Southern Africa. Volunteer and Service Enquiry Southern Africa (Johannesburg
2007). Av.Vv. Volunteering, Annual Review of Sociology (August 2000) Vol.26: 1-723. Clary E.G., Snyder
M., Ridge R.D., Copeland J., Stukas A.A., Haugen J., Miene P., Understanding and assessing the motiva-
tions of volunteers: A functional approach, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1998) 74, 1516–1530.
Plewers B., Stuart R., Opportunities and challenges for international volunteer co-operation. International Forum
on Development Service (Montreal 2007). Powel S., Bratović E., The impact of long-term youth voluntary service
in Europe, AVSO, ProMente (Brussels 2006). Rochester C., Making sense of volunteering: A literature renew.
Volunteering England (London 2006). Secretaría de Pueblos, Movimientos Sociales y Participación
Ciudadana, El Voluntariado en el Ecuador y su Inserción en las Políticas Públicas (Quito 2008). Sherr M.E.,
Social work with volunteers (Chicago 2008). Shye S., The motivation to volunteer: A systematic quality of life
theory, Social Indicators Research, (2010) 98(2) 183–200. Wilson J., Volunteering. Annual Review of Sociology,
(2000) 26(1) 215–240. Dávila de León M. C., La incidencia diferencial de los factores psicosociales en distintos
tipos de voluntariado. Tesis de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Psicología, Departamento
de Psicología Social (Madrid 2004). Di Rosella S, Quisi Q., Il volontariato. Risorsa per sé e per gli altri, Paoline
(Cinisello Balsamo, Milano 2010).
30
VOLUNTEERING TODAY
sociocultural expression of the industrialised West3. New studies
extend the analysis of volunteering to most countries, evidencing
the richness of this phenomenon, for example, in South-East Asia
and sub-Saharan Africa4.
[22] Another note of this universality is found in the valorisation of expres-
sions of solidarity in different cultures. As the tequio (community service)
between the Mixe people of Oaxaca, Mexico, the tatawa’a (charitable
activity) in the Arab world, ubuntu (the person in solidarity with others)
of the African Bantu culture; the baranguay in the Philippines, the
gotong royong of Indonesia, the harambé of Kenya, the shramadana
in India.
[23] Although the phenomenon of organised volunteering is growing in de-
veloping countries, some notes of concern may arise in countries that
have traditionally been rich in this expression but where it is beginning
to decline5. The causes may be diverse (demographic, economic, tech-
nological), but the most outstanding is the cultural change, in which
solidarity and the sense of community belonging is giving rise to a
more individualistic, competitive and anonymous cultural model, where
volunteering does not appear as a social value. In short, we are faced
with a process of impoverishment of humanity. This makes a decisive
investment in volunteering as “education to humanism” even more ur-
gent. The relationship between volunteering and religious practice is
3 Studies abound on the reality of volunteering in the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe. As an example: in
2012, some 64.5 million Americans, or 26.5% of the adult population, gave 7.9 billion hours of voluntary
service with a value of US $ 175 billion. The realities observed in the United Kingdom and Australia were
similar.
4 For example, the World Giving Index 2016, where it is calculated, among 140 nations, the solidarity index
measuring aid to strangers, monetary aid and volunteering, has given the first place to Myanmar, followed in
terms of volunteering by Sri Lanka , USA, New Zealand, the Philippines and Kenya; the countries with less
volunteering: China, Egypt and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
5 Cavadi A., Volontariato in Crisi? Diagnosi e terapia (Trapani 2003). According to Volunteering and Civic Enga-
gement in America Research, the number of people dedicated to voluntary aid in 2005 was 28.8%, with 25.3%
in 2014. Hartnett B, Matan R., So Volunteerism is Declining: Now What? Sobel & Co., LLX (2014). The same
phenomenon is perceived in Australia, passing in 2010 from 36% in 2014 to 31% and in the United King-
dom the same 5% decrease is found. In Italy the 2015 report of the CSVNET (National Coordination of the
Center for Services for Volunteering) points out the significant reduction of 15% of voluntary associations.
The decrease in the youth presence, from 14 to 34 years old, is also worrying. The average age of the Italian
volunteer is 48.1 years. This trend was already projected in 2002.
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VOLUNTEERING IN THE SALESIAN MISSION
also significant, as shown by various sociological studies6. Although
the relationship is complex, there is a clear proportionality, indicating
that a decrease in religious belonging and motivation corresponds to
a decrease in volunteering work.
[24] The year 2001 was a significant year as it was declared the International
Year of Volunteering by the United Nations. The objectives pursued can
be reduced to four: greater recognition, ease of action, networking and
promotion of volunteering. The reflection on volunteering in governments
and civil society has generated studies, awareness, political actions and
various initiatives. We recall three of the final recommendations made
by all governments in 20027.
• If volunteering is neglected in the formulation and implementation
of policies, there is a risk of discarding a valuable resource that
holds and binds communities together.
• There is no universal model of best practice; they depend on
different cultures and traditions.
• Support for volunteering activities does not imply support for
the reduction of government work or for activities to replace paid
employment.
[25] Ten years later in Europe, the year of European volunteering is declared,
and at the world level is the first report on the state of volunteering. This
is an in-depth study that gives many clues for reflection, clarification
and action8. The report indicated three new clues for volunteering:
6 Hustinx L., Von Essen J., Haers J., Mels S., (editors), Religion and Volunteering. Complex, contested and
ambiguous relationships. Non-profit and Civil Society Studies. International Society for Third Sector Research
(Springer 2015). Van Ingen E., Dekker P., Charges in Determinants of Volunteering: Participation and Time
Investment between 1975 and 2005 in Netherlands, Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (2011) 40(2)
682–702.
7 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Recommendations on support for volunteering (A/
RES/56/38) (2002b). Resolution adopted by the General Assembly at the fifty-sixth session—Agenda item
108, p. 3.
8 United Nations Volunteers. State of World’s Volunteerism Report 2011. Universal Values for Global Well-being.
United Nations Volunteers (UNV 2011); in 2015, another report was made: United Nations Volunteers.
State of the World’s Volunteerism Report. Transforming Governance (UNV 2015). This latest report is more focu-
sed on “social activism” as an actor for a good direction. The first report is better able to give an overview of
volunteering today in its diverse expressions and challenges.
32
VOLUNTEERING TODAY
a. new information technologies have opened up new perspectives
through information exchange and democratisation;
b. international volunteering, especially among students and
professionals, has helped transfer knowledge;
c. in recent years “corporate volunteering” in the private sector
has also increased.
[26] Volunteering, seen as a fundamental contribution to society:
• it fosters development. Values of volunteering are of great
importance in strengthening the capacity of the most vulnerable to
secure livelihoods and improve their social well-being by reducing
social exclusion. It represents, therefore, a way to access to
inclusion9;
• it promotes civic values, social cohesion and conflict resolutions;
• it creates bonds of trust and a feeling of common identity and
destiny;
• it is a highly effective and practical means of harnessing the
capacities of the population in all societies and at all levels.
The inherent values of volunteering endow the latter with far-reaching
consequences for human development. This new concept of development
includes factors such as solidarity, social inclusion, empowerment, life
satisfaction and individual and social well-being. The well-being of people
is intrinsically linked to the contribution these people make to the lives
of others10.
9 UNV 2011, xxii–xxiii.
10 UNV 2011, xxiv.
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2 Criticisms, risks,
misunderstandings and
opportunities
[27] The issue of volunteering has provoked many criticisms because it is
considered “light solidarity”, neither attentive nor active in the structural
dimension of injustice that generates poverty and inequality, falling
into a form of superficial paternalistic assistance, lacking a critical
vision that is able to denounce the injustices that hurt the elemen-
tary rights of the person and not generating the processes of social
transformation11.
[28] On the other hand, volunteering may hide other highly selfish motivations,
in which an apparent solidarity conceals personal interests: tourism
(voluntourist)12, curricular, cultural enrichment and personal experience,
job opportunities13. We must not ignore the “business” of humanitarian aid14
where projects are sought not so much by the needs of the beneficiaries but
11 Sarasola J.L., Solidaridad y voluntariado: una visión crítica, Comunicar 15(2000) 99–103. García Roca J.,
Solidaridad y voluntariado (Bilbao 1994). Cabezas González M., Reflexiones críticas sobre el voluntariado,
Papeles Salmantinos de Educación 0(2001) 12–32. Aranguren G.L.A., Reinventar la solidaridad. Voluntariado
y educación, PPC (Madrid 1998). Bueno G., Voluntariado: una mirada crítica, Texto base para la conferencia de
clausrua del XIII Congreso Estatal del Voluntariado. XIII Congreso Estatal del Voluntariado La Rioja 2010
(Logroño, 02/12/2010). Vera Rojas W.D., Pobreza y voluntariado. Análisis crítico del discurso aplicado a tres
programas sociales de la ciudad de Valparaíso, Última década (26) CIDPA Valparaíso (Julio 2007) 147–177.
Bettoni, A., Cruz A., Voluntariado en América del Sur: perfiles, impacto y desafíos, Ponencia presentada en la V
Conferencia Internacional de la Sociedad Internacional de Investigación del Tercer Sector (Ciudad del Cabo
2002). Collado Ruano J., Educar para vivir: la metodología psicopedagógica de Paulo Freire en la fenomenologia
del voluntariado. Didáctica 72; in http://www.academia.edu/1903571/Educar_para_vivir_la_metodologia_psi-
cosociopedagógica_de_Paulo_Freire_en_la_fenomenologia_del_voluntariado (accessed 08/06/17).
12 Wesby M., The exploitative selfishness of volunteering abroad (08/8/15); in Newsweek: http://europe. newsweek.
com/exploitative-selfishness-volunteering-abroad-331703?rm=eu (acces 31/01/17); Coghlan A., Noakes
S., Towards an Understanding of the Drivers of Commercialisation in the Volunteer Tourism Sector, Tourism
Recreation Research (2012) 37(2) 123–131. Hartman E., Cody Morris Paris C., Blache-Cohen B., Fair
Trade Learning: Ethical Standards for Community-Engaged International Volunteer Tourism, Tourism and
Hospitality Research (2014)14(1–2)108–116.
13 Rehberg W. Altruistic Individualists: Motivations for International Volunteering among young adults in
Switzerland, Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and No-profit Organisations 16(2) (June 2005) 109–122.
14 Marcon G., L’ambiguità degli aiuti umanitari. Indagine critica sul Terzo settore (Milano 2002). Sulbarán Lovera
P., El “fracaso” de las organisaciones de ayuda humanitaria en Haití; in http://www.bbc.com/mundo/ noticias-in-
ternacional-37614689 (accessed 10/06/2017).
34
VOLUNTEERING TODAY
rather to make institutions survive. It is evident when government funding
is finished, NGOs are also closed and volunteering ends.
[29] There are some misconceptions about volunteering that United Nations
Volunteers15 clarifies from many concrete experiences in the world:
a. it is said that volunteering occurs only through legally
recognised, formal and structured NGOs, usually in developed
countries; not so: in reality, it is also much broader in scope
and occurs via many unofficial structures;
b. volunteering takes place only in the civil society sector (third
sector); volunteering has, instead, developed a lot in various
contexts in public and private sectors;
c. volunteering is the preserve of the well-off and well-educated;
solidarity in even poor communities is often very high;
d. volunteering is the domain of amateurs who are unskilled and
inexperienced; professionals serving as volunteers is common;
e. women make up the bulk of volunteering. Although women
do dominate in certain areas, men dominate in other areas
of voluntary work;
f. young people do not volunteer. Quite the contrary; the
involvement of young people is great, although they do not
currently prefer official organisations;
g. volunteering is a face-to-face activity. The remarkable evolution
of IT (Information Technology) allows for volunteering that is
not limited to direct contact actions;
h. volunteering should be off-limits for state intervention. It is not
so. However, certain policies may favour or hinder volunteering;
i. volunteering is free. It is true that the volunteer performs his
service free of charge, but it does involve costs of logistics,
organisation and maintenance.
15 UNV 2011, 9–14.
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3 Volunteering and education
[30] One of the most significant elements on which it has been reflected is
the educational dimension of volunteering as a school of civic values16,
character building and training for skills.
The volunteering experience is highly valued at the time of job searching
due to the many social skills it supports. In fact, in a Curriculum Vitae,
substantial importance is given to volunteering service.
This education makes volunteering an agent of social transformation
and a builder of the culture of solidarity, offering psychosocial contents,
emotional intelligence, education and operational criteria that guide the
integral formation of the young person. It enables one to discover his/
her potential resources and empower his/her leadership skills. These
educational processes are achieved through concrete experiences17.
Education for social volunteering and social complexity opens up a critical
view of the functions and responsibilities shared with other agents in
order to promote real social transformations. It educates to create an
intervention that enhances local endogenous community development
from within18. In this way, volunteering becomes an activity in favour
of development education, forming awareness, building networks of
commitment in the search for the causes of suffering of so many people
abandoned by public bodies.
16 Cf. Prochaska F., Schools of Citizenship: Charity and Civic Virtue. Civitas (London 2002). Haski-Leventhal D.,
Ronel N., York A., Ben-David B.M.,Youth volunteering for youth: Who are they serving, how are they being
served, Children and Youth Services Review (2008) 30(7) 834–846. Johnson M.K., Beebe T., Mortimer J.T.,
Snyder M., Volunteerism in adolescence. A process perspective, Journal of Research on Adolescence (1998) 8(3)
309–332. Di Bello R., De Martis A., Guidolin E., Le ragioni della solidarietà. Principi pedagogici ed esperienze
di volontariato. Gregoriana (Roma 1992). Pieri G., Educazione, cittadinanza, volontariato. Frontiere pedagogiche.
Firenze University Press (Firenze 2013). Oesterle S., Kirkpatrick Johnson M., Mortimer J. Volunteerism
during the Transition to Adulthood, Social Forces (2004) 82(11) 23–49.
17 Sberga A.A., Voluntariado jovem. Construção da identidade e educação sociopolítica (São Paulo 2001) 28–33.
18 Cruz López L., Pernas Gradaílle R., Voluntariado y ONG’s desde la mirada crítica de la educación social. Inno-
vación Educativa, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela 13(2003), 169–177.
36
VOLUNTEERING TODAY
Education makes volunteering a
social transformative agent and
builder of the culture of solidarity
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4 Volunteering
and human rights
[31]
Volunteering, in its various expressions, is closely related to the issue of
human rights, social inclusion and active citizenship19. At the Salesian
level, we have reflected on the close relationship between human rights
and the Preventive System. This relationship is rooted in the perspective
of the integral salvation of young people. The Gospel and our charism
call for a journey along the path of human rights. The Preventive System
and human rights interact and enrich each other. The Preventive System
offers human rights a unique and innovative educational approach to
the movement for the promotion and protection of human rights. In
the same way, the Declaration of Human Rights offers the Preventive
System new frontiers and opportunities for social and cultural impact
as an effective response to the drama of the split between education
and society, school and citizenship. In this way, educational and Salesian
volunteering finds a rich and current perspective in the promotion of
human rights20.
5 Volunteering and religion
[32] Volunteering as citizen participation is often associated with religion that
carries a series of values related to solidarity, justice and self-surrender.
The UN report makes a strong statement: “Studies show that religious
19 The UN report on volunteering in 2015 analyses in depth the implication of volunteering with active citizens-
hip that, among the various activities, promotes human rights, State of the World’s Volunteerism Report 2015.
Transforming Governance (UNV 2015).
20 Chávez P., Aguinaldo 2013. “Rallegratevi nel Signore; ve lo ripeto ancora, rallegrativi” (Flp 4,4) (Roma 2012).
Dicastero della Pastorale Giovanile della Congregazione Salesiana, Atti del Congresso internazio-
nale: Sistema Preventivo e Diritti Umani (Roma 02-06 January 2009). Lasarte M., Bonardi F., Do Direito e…
do Esquerdo. Manual de Ferramentas didácticas para professores, formadores, educadores e promotores dos direitos
humanos (VIS-Don Bosco, Luanda 2010).
38
VOLUNTEERING TODAY
people are, generally speaking, more engaged than non-religious people”21.
In fact, sociological research on religion indicates a greater propensity
for volunteering of members belonging to a religious community. In
particular, Christianity increases civic commitment22 and, among the various
communities, the Catholic community23 stands out. In the United States,
for example, people who volunteer for religious reasons are twice as many
as those who volunteer for secular ones24.
There are various examples of how “churches” are significantly involved in
programmes and organisation of volunteering. Volunteering gives a sense
of belonging to the community. There are innumerable initiatives on the
five continents linked to religious organisations, attentive to extreme
poverty, health, education and rural development. The UN report cites
Caritas, with 440,000 employees and 625,000 volunteers worldwide.
It should be noted that various indicators of volunteer growth and decline are
related in direct proportion to the growth and decline of religious practice.
6 Volunteering in the Church
[33] Volunteering in the Catholic Church is widely disseminated and
internationally recognised. It is enough to think of the presence of
volunteers in the 115,352 charitable and assistance institutes (5,158
21 UNV 2011, 7. Cf. Saroglou, V, Pichon I, Trompette L., Vershueren M., Dernelle R., Prosocial bahavoiur
and religion: New evidence based on projective measures and peer ratings, Journal for the Scientific Study of
Religion (2005) 44(3), 323–348.
22 Hoi Ok Jeong, How do Religions differ in their impact on Individuals’ Social Capital? The Case of South Ko-
rea. Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (2010) 39(1) 142-160. Musick M., John W., Volunteers A Social
Profile. University Press Indianapolis (Indiana 2008); Matsuba, K. M., Hart D, Atkins R., Psychological and
Social-Structural Influences on Commitment to Volunteering, Journal of Research in Personality (2007) (41)
889–907.
23 Ruiter S., Drik De Graaf N., National Context, Religiosity, and Volunteering: Results from 53 Countries,
American Sociological Review (2006) 71(2) 416–433. According to studies of religious studies of the University
of Kent, more than 70% of the NGOs represented in the UN are of Christian origin, and among these the most
significant are of Catholic reference; cf Thomasine F.R. United Nations too Christian, claims report. The Guar-
dian (29/09/2014) in https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/01/united-nations-too-christian-report
(accessed 01/07/2017).
24 Wilson J., Janoski T., The contribution of Religion to Volunteer Work, Sociology of Religion (1995) 56(2)
137–152.
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VOLUNTEERING IN THE SALESIAN MISSION
hospitals, 16,523 clinics, 612 leprosarium, 15,679 nursing homes and
chronic patients, 9,492 orphanages, 14,576 matrimonial offices, 3,782
social re-education centres and 37,601 social services); 12,637 nursery
schools, 73,580 kindergartens, 96,283 primary schools, 46,339 secondary
schools. It is also worth noting the presence of 368,520 lay missionaries25.
Furthermore, the presence of Catholic volunteers is not limited to Catholic
institutions.
[34] The references of volunteering in the pontificate of Saint John Paul II are
quite abundant. There are more than 200 interventions between encyclicals
(as in Centesimus Annus, Evangelium vitae), apostolic exhortations
(Christifideles laici, Ecclesia in Europe), speeches, homilies, messages and
Angelus. The volunteer contributes to the construction of a more humane
culture and finds its fullness in charity: “volunteer work is a special factor
that contributes to humanisation: thanks to the many forms of solidarity
and of service that they promote and make concrete, volunteer workers
make society more attentive to the dignity of the person and his/her many
expectations. Through their activity, volunteers come to realise that, only if
one loves and gives himself to others, does the human creature reach perfect
fulfillment … Through volunteer work, the Christian becomes a witness of
this divine charity; he proclaims it and makes it tangible with courageous
and prophetic contributions”26.
[35] Benedict XVI in ‘Deus Caritas Est’ presents volunteering as a school
of life, as an alternative to the culture of death. “For young people this
widespread involvement constitutes a school of life which offers them a
formation in solidarity and in readiness to offer others not simply material
aid but their very selves. The anti-culture of death, which finds expression
for example in drug use, is thus countered by an unselfish love, which shows
itself by the very willingness to “lose oneself” for others (cf. Lk 17:33 et
passim) to be a culture of life”27.
25 Agency fides, Agency of the Pontifical Missionary Works (23/10/2016); in http://www.fides.org/it/
news/61026-VATICANO _Le_statistiche_della_Chiesa_cattolica_2016#.WVP79lH-uUk (accessed
18/05/2017).
26 John Paul II, Message on the occasion of the conclusion of the International Year of Volunteering (Vatican 2001).
27 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 30.
40
VOLUNTEERING TODAY
[36] Pope Francis has offered a number of interventions in relation to
volunteering. In emblematic form, he indicates to us Saint Teresa of
Calcutta as patron of the volunteer: “The volunteers, who out of love for
Jesus serve the poor and the needy, do not expect any thanks or reward;
rather they renounce all this because they have discovered true love ...
Her mission [of Mother Teresa] to the urban and existential peripheries
remains for us today an eloquent witness to God’s closeness to the poorest
of the poor. Today, I pass on this emblematic figure of womanhood and of
consecrated life to the whole world of volunteers: may she be your model
of holiness! ... May this tireless worker of mercy help us increasingly to
understand that our only criterion for action is gratuitous love, free from
every ideology and all obligations, offered freely to everyone without
distinction of language, culture, race or religion”28. The Synod on “Youth,
Faith and Vocational Discernment” offers a reading and reflections on
volunteering29.
7 Volunteering in the
Congregation
[37] The theme of missionary volunteering began to be discussed in the
Congregation in GC 21 (147) without using the term, indicating the
participation of the laity in the missionary renewal of the Congregation.
GC 22 (10), in the light of Project Africa, indicates that “youth and Salesian
volunteering” should come to life. In GC 23, in the context of the education
of young people in the faith, civil and missionary volunteers are seen as a
fundamental means for their personal and Christian maturation and their
social and ecclesial commitment (1, 179, 180, 252, 274).
It was GC 24 that went deeper into the subject of volunteering, reflecting
on “the Salesians and laity, sharing the spirit and the mission”, recognising
28 Francis, Holy Mass and Canonisation of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Jubilee of the operators and volunteers
of mercy. Homily of the Holy Father Francis (Vatican 04/09/2016).
29 Synod of Bishops of XV Ordinary General Assembly, 46, 54, 137.
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the richness of their presence. The document makes a careful description
of volunteering, of its various modalities and typologies, of its relationship
with the Salesian religious community; its accompaniment, considering
in particular the purpose of the service experience; its relationship to the
vast Salesian Movement; of the organisation and the provincial project
of volunteering (17, 20, 26, 34, 49, 84, 112, 122, 124, 126, 141, 152).
[38] After the third edition of document “Voluntary Service in the Salesian
mission. Handbook and Guidelines” (Rome 2008)30 by the Departments
for Youth Ministry and the Missions, the theme was continued in the last
General Chapters: in GC 26 in relation to evangelisation and the ability
to call vocations (26, 30, 58, 67, 68); in GC 27 regarding the vocational
maturity and the zeal for moving to the peripheries (17, 73). Finally, the
terminology “Salesian Missionary Volunteering” appears in the Frame
of Reference of Salesian Youth Ministry31.
The concrete reality about volunteering in the Congregation continues to be
diverse, fruitful and growing in some regions. Social, missionary, educational,
long-term and short-term volunteering continues with dynamism32.
[39] In the joint regional meetings promoted by the Departments for Youth
Ministry and Missions held in Addis Ababa (Sept.16–19, 2015), Quito
30 The first edition is from 1995, with the collaboration also of the Salesian Family Departament. Other studies
and subsidies have been: Dicastero per la Pastorale Giovanile. Esperienze di Volontariato Salesiano. Dos-
sier PG n.10. Esperienze a confronto (Rome 1995); Dicastero per la Pastorale Giovanile. Formazione
al Volontariato Salesiano. PG file n. 11. Esperienze a confronto (Roma 1996); Dicastero per la Pastorale
Giovanile. Giovani come tutti, ma… Testimonianze di volontari. Dossier PG n.12. Esperienze a confronto (Roma
1996); an international convention: Malizia G., Pieroni V., I gruppi/ organizzazioni di volontariato salesiano nel
mondo (Roma 2001); The Salesian Missionary Day 2011 had as its theme the Salesian Missionary Missionary
Service: Departament for the Missions, Volunteers to proclaim the Gospel (Rome 2011).
31 FRSYM (Frame of Reference Salesian Youth Ministry) 157–161.
32 Without being exhaustive we quote some examples from 2017: “Salesiani per il Sociale” - “Federazione SCS
CNOS” in its 80 social centers act 2,244 volunteers, in the Social Platforms of Spain there are more than 1,200.
There are several Salesian organisations that send SMV for a long time: Volunteering from Ecuador sends more
than 110 young people annually through the country; also: Salesian Youth Volunteers (BOL), Salesian Mis-
sionary Volunteers (ARN-ARS), Salesian Volunteers (MEM), Salesian Missionary Volunteers (ANG), Salesian
Youth Volunteers (VEN); others that are external: Salesian Lay Missioners (SUE), Salesian Volunteers (SUO);
Salesian Volunteering (BSP), VIS (Italia) SADBA (CEP), SAVIO (SLK), Don Bosco Volunteers (GER), Samem
(BEN) Wolontariat Salezjanie (PLE), Młodzi Światu (PLS); Bova (GBR), Jóvenes y Desarrollo/ Solidaridad Don
Bosco (SMX-SSM), Salesians Lay Volunteers Philippines (FIN), Salesian Lay Volunteer Organisation (FIS), Don
Bosco Volunteer Group (GIA), Cagliero Project (AUL), Voluntariado Misionero Salesiano (URU), Voluntariado
Juvenil Salesiano (MEG), International Volunteer Group (KOR).
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VOLUNTEERING TODAY
(Oct. 17–20, 2015), Bangalore (Nov. 2–5, 2015), Seoul (Nov. 10–14, 2015),
Compostela (Feb. 1–5, 2016) and Rome (Feb. 9–13, 2016), participants
assessed and reflected upon the current situation of volunteering in
the provinces. These meetings highlighted the richness of volunteering,
its challenges, limitations and vitality in various contexts. Among the
various aspects raised, the following stand out: the need for volunteering
to be part of the processes of Youth Ministry; the need to emphasise
the missionary dimension (motivation of faith); and the importance of a
provincial organisation with shared criteria (volunteer project, directory,
provincial and local referent, formation, accompaniment).
[40] Finally, a sociological study33 of 427 former volunteers who carried out
their service in the Salesian mission between 2006 and 2015, usually
dedicating one year of service, offers very interesting conclusions for
appreciating the reality of volunteering in the current Salesian mission.
It must be considered that the survey, although not exhaustive of the
Salesian world, since it is based only on the data of those who responded,
is nonetheless highly representative of the reality of Salesian volunteering.
Below are some statistics for information rather than interpretation.
54.6% are female volunteers and 45.4% are male volunteers. The ages
with which they did their service oscillate between 18 to 35, the larger
group being between 18 and 24 years (55%). 70% completed university
studies. 45% stayed in a Salesian community and 31% in a community
for volunteers. The respondents were from 28 countries: 42% in Europe,
35.5% in Latin America, 20% in North America, 1% in Africa, 1% in Asia,
0.5% in Oceania. The countries that stand out the most in the study are:
Ecuador (98), USA (66), Spain (51), Austria (33) and Argentina (22). The
main places where they volunteered were Ecuador (112), Angola (69),
Bolivia (41), Mexico (36) and India (24). 30% volunteered locally, 70% on
an international level. As of June 2016, 59.5% were single, 29% married,
5.8% divorced or living together, 5.6% in religious life. The motivations
for volunteering are: justice/solidarity 31.7%, religious motivation 22.2%,
33 This first data collection was carried out by Montenegro J.C., with the collaboration of the Missions Sector,
in view of its doctoral thesis on a study on Salesian voluntary service (June 2016).
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preparation for professional experience 20.1%, vocational call 10%,
invitation made by another 10%.
The hardest moments during the experience were community life and
cultural challenges. Some of the riches discovered were self-knowledge,
social awareness, relationship with God and the acquisition of new skills.
93.4% feel that volunteering helped them in their current job or vocation.
92.5% affirm that they had grown spiritually (80.3% grown in their
sacramental life). The most difficult moments were found to be before
volunteering (12.9%), during volunteering (34.8%), after volunteering
(52.2%). 89% said their expectations about volunteering were met. 84.3%
were accompanied in the experience.
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VOLUNTEERING TODAY
Social, missionary,
educational volunteering,
long and short-term
continues with dynamism
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I EN III T IDENTITY
OF
SALESIAN
TMISSIONARY
D YVOLUNTEERING

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1 Definition of Salesian
Missionary Volunteering
(SMV)
[41]
It is a service of solidarity, made without cost and freely-given by a
young person, sent and welcomed by a community, which is part of the
educative and pastoral project of a Salesian presence or promoted by it,
with a sufficient continuity of time, motivated by faith, with a missionary
style and according to the pedagogy and spirituality of Don Bosco.
1.1. CLARIFICATIONS
[42] This definition is certainly open to a degree of flexibility, but without
losing the richness of an identity that gives strength and clarity to the
proposal. Some explanations:
• solidarity service: especially implies the social-cultural-
economic-professional dimension of the service offered to a
particular community;
• freely: implies that the experience is not motivated by work-
related or curricular requirements, but freely and generously
assumed;
• gratis: implies the absence of salary (foreseeing the ordinary
sustenance of support like any other missionary). This
differentiates it from other types, also valid, of interventions in
the Salesian mission such as civil service, cooperation, technical
support, etc.;
• young: (17–35 years). One must be at least 21 years old for the
international SMV. Other criteria are civil ages or the end of
secondary studies or higher studies. The presence of adults and
even missionary families is not excluded, but the priority focus of
the SMV is young people;
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IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOLUNTEERING
• community: community experience is fundamental in the
mission, both with the community of origin as well as with the host
community. Community insertion can take place in various ways
(permanent or occasional stay in the Salesian community, or in
a house for volunteers, etc.). The volunteer is integrated into the
existing local and provincial educative and pastoral project or in
another non-Salesian community, but sent by the latter;
• sufficient continuity: ordinarily, the minimum service required is
one year full-time, or as the case may be, also intermittent, regular
and continuous service for long periods of time;
• faith: implies faith as the fundamental motivation, which consists
of the centrality of Jesus Christ in one’s life, the reference to
evangelical values, the ecclesial insertion and the evangelising
dimension of service, particularly through their witness of life.
It is characterised by a demanding missionary spirituality, which
implies leaving one’s environment to be sent to new contexts;
• Don Bosco: implies the knowledge of the person of Don Bosco, the
Salesian Congregation, the Preventive System and the practice
and experience of it as pedagogy and spirituality.
1.2 THREE WORDS
[43] In the explanation of the concepts expressed in the three words of
Salesian Missionary Volunteering, we outline its identity. We consider
four universal aspects that distinguish volunteering:
a. solidarity service for the common good;
b. freely given by the volunteer;
c. gratuitous;
d. continuous and sustainable.
Volunteering: is not to be confused with collaboration or other valid and
important educational initiatives and humanitarian interventions (cooperation,
contracting, civil service, alternative service to the military, technical support,
curriculum requirement, internship, cultural exchange ...). Volunteering is
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done freely, for solidarity and free of charge. It has a lay and professional
character, particularly when it comes to international volunteering, which
demands greater competence and preparation. Continuity implies, on the
one hand, sufficient dedication of time, usually for a year, and on the other
hand, a perpetuity of the project carried out in an institutionally organised way.
[44] Missionary: a volunteer expresses the “joy of evangelising”. The
fundamental motivations spring from faith. He/she participates in
the process of evangelisation through his/her testimony and his/her
professional intervention as a way of building the Kingdom of God. For
those who perform it, this service becomes a path of Christian maturity
and youthful holiness. Its missionary dimension involves leaving one’s
own land or community to go and serve in other places witnessing and
announcing the Lord. Local volunteering is lived fully with a missionary
spirit while remaining in one’s own environment.
[45] Salesian: volunteering is characterised by the affinity to the world of young
people, an education guided by the Preventive System, animated by the “da
mihi animas”, with an Oratorian heart and family spirit. It is a service linked
to the Salesian religious community and embedded in an educational and
pastoral community, with an educational and pastoral project. Each volunteer
has Don Bosco as an inspiring model. This charismatic typology depicts our
way of being a Church and contributing to society.
2 Theological aspects of
volunteering
2.1. THE MISSION IS BORN OF LOVE
[46] The mission has its foundation in the origin of the Trinitarian love. For this
reason “the Church is by nature missionary” (Ad Gentes 2). The Church is
faithful to sending missionaries and continues the mission of Jesus “to
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IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOLUNTEERING
bring glad tidings to the poor; to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery
of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free” (Lk 4:18). Encouraged
by the Holy Spirit, she is at the service of the Kingdom of God.
The mission must be attentive to the changing human reality, responding
to diverse cultures, new means of communications, confronting pluralism,
inculturating the Gospel and being open to ecumenical and interreligious
dialogue.
2.2. A CHURCH WHICH “GOES FORTH”
[47] The missionary Church must be “one that goes forth”1.The mission must
be embodied and contextualised: it is important to be aware of the
specific social environment so that language is adapted and becomes
meaningful to people. In this sense, the Church must be attentive to the
process of inculturation of the Gospel by valuing different cultures. To
this multicultural environment is added the diversity of religions, with
which the Church must converse so that in the various beliefs, one can
assume the principles of unity, especially in social commitment and
human promotion. The pilgrim Church follows the steps of her Master,
being summoned to make an option for the little ones and the poor, the
main recipients of their mission. The Church addresses the social and
existential peripheries, seeking to respond to these challenges, being a
prophetic voice and an agent of social transformation. The challenge of an
“outgoing” Church passes through a true process of pastoral conversion,
which leads to abandoning a simple model of pastoral care.
2.3. THE MISSIONARY DISCIPLESHIP
[48] Through baptism every Christian participates in the priestly, prophetic and
kingly ministry of Christ. Therefore, every Christian is a missionary disciple2
called to participate actively in the proclamation of the Gospel. Through
1 Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 20–23.
2 Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 120.
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the Sacrament of Confirmation, the Church is more closely linked and
receives a special enrichment of the Spirit in order to defend and spread
faith through the word and witness of her works3. Volunteering, deeply
embedded in temporal human realities, manifests the lay vocation and
mission, transforming the world according to God’s plan4.
The vocation of the missionary disciple5 is born of an encounter: “One
does not begin to be a Christian by an ethical decision or a great idea, but
by the encounter with an event, with a Person, who gives a new horizon
to life and, with it, a decisive orientation”6. The vital experience of that
encounter leads to a change, to adapting a lifestyle according to the
project announced by Jesus. The joy of being a disciple, having received
this Good News, leads him/her to be a missionary in the ordinary life, at
the service of the Kingdom of God.
The community dimension of the disciple is fundamental. The Christian
community, in this sense, must be the “salt and light” with their testimony.
The teaching of Jesus the Good Shepherd leads to a life centred in love; a
love that welcomes the diversity, that goes to those in need, that overcomes
legalism, that feels mercy for those who repent and carry heavy burdens,
that is compassionate with those who walk without direction, that becomes
poor with the poor. The great hallmark of all missionary disciples and of
every Christian community is to live the commandment of love.
2.4. THE MISSIONARY VOLUNTEER:
AN EXPERIENCE OF LOVE
[49] Through the spectrum of Christian love, let us try to reflect on the four
universal characteristics of volunteering: freedom of choice, free of
charge, service and continuity.
3 Vatican II Council Lumen Gentium, 11.
4 John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, 15, 32, 36.
5 Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 119–121.
6 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 1.
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IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOLUNTEERING
a. A free love that liberates
The human being, created in the image and likeness of God, is
free and responsible. In his immense goodness, God has a plan of
love that is revealed little by little in Creation and in the history of
salvation. In Jesus we have the full revelation of the love of God. In
his life, in his words and actions, he proclaims the Kingdom. Thus,
as he has freely accepted to carry out God’s saving plan, doing His
will, the proposal he makes is free and requires faithfulness and
conversion: “I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one
takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay
it down, and power to take it up again” (Jn 10:17–18).
The missionary volunteer is invited to embrace freely the project
of love and happiness that comes from God. It is not an imposition
or coercion, but a co-responsibility. The SMV is an expression of
this freedom, called to announce and witness the Good News in
a concrete way in life, in offering oneself to others. But before
offering oneself, comes the answer: “the ‘yes’ to a free, responsible
and supportive commitment. It is a decision that makes us free
and open to the needs of others, to the demands of justice, the
defence of life and care of the creation. In voluntary commitments
comes the key dimension of the Christian image of God and of the
human person: love of God and of the neighbour”7.
[50]
b. A love that gives itself for free
God creates and saves unreservedly. The rationale of God is not
that of “exchange” but of pure giving. In Jesus the Good Shepherd
one can recognise the merciful face of God in relation to humanity,
especially to the poor and needy. The proclamation of the Kingdom
and the invitation to follow requires total and radical self-giving, the
free surrender of His life has produced a new life for all humankind in
His Resurrection. The disciples, precisely because they experience
this love, give themselves totally to the proclamation of the Gospel.
7 Benedict XVI, Apostolic journey of his holiness to Austria on the occasion of the 850th anniversary of the
founding of the sanctuary of Marizell. Meeting with the world of volunteering, (Wiener Konzerthaus-Vienna,
09/06/2007).
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“Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give”
(Mt 10:8). This dimension of giving freely is fundamental in the
experience of Salesian missionary volunteering, which leads the
volunteer to love as God loves: gratuitous.
[51]
It is because we have received life from God free of charge, that
we were freely liberated from the blind path of sin and evil, and
freely the Spirit was bestowed upon us with His manifold gifts.
Love is free; it is not exercised to achieve other purposes. Whoever
is in a position to help can recognise that in this way he/she is
also helped; it is not their merit or pride that they can help. This
task is Grace. We freely transmit what we receive through our
commitment and our voluntary action8.
c. A love that becomes service
To love God means to love brothers and sisters, to welcome
them and serve them. This teaching leads us to the concrete life,
where the greatest testimony that can be given is service as an
expression of Christian charity. The parable of the Good Samaritan
fittingly expresses the sense of missionary volunteering from the
perspective of the service that springs from love. “The programme
of the Christian, the plan of the Good Samaritan, the plan of Jesus,
is a ‘seeing heart’. This heart sees where there is a need for love
and acts in a consequent way”9. The heart that “sees” the suffering
reality of so many people moves the volunteer to go to the social
and existential peripheries of so many brothers and sisters in need.
The criterion of fidelity to the Gospel is service to the poor and the
marginalised, because in them Christians are called to experience
Jesus: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least
brothers of mine, you did for me” (Mt 25:40). The service is not mere
philanthropy or assistance, but an operative charity. Solidarity with
the poorest and most defenceless must move to the construction
8 Benedict XVI, id.. Cf. Deus Caritas Est, 35. John Paul II, Holy Father’s Message for Lent 2002: “Freely you have
received; freely give” (Mt 10:8).
9 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 31.
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IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOLUNTEERING
of a civilisation of love in collaboration with all the living forces of
society, through ecumenical and interreligious dialogue and with
unbelievers, a dialogue capable of being a prophetic testimony of
love, of donation, of service and of the promotion of life.
[52]
d. A love that endures
One of the characteristics of divine love from the Old Testament is
the inseparable terms hesed w’emet—love (mercy) and fidelity. Often
the theme of love is confused with a vague feeling of compassion
that leads to exclusive and isolated interventions, but do not lead
to engage or assume a permanent lifetime commitment. Christian
service is not just a simple aid that is provided in a moment of
need; it is a vocation to charity with which the disciple of Christ
serves with his own life, to grow day by day in love. The love of
Christ speaks of this persistence: “He loved his own in the world
and he loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1). The Pauline hymn sings:
“Love never ends” (1 Cor 13:8). The Salesian missionary volunteer
is not interested in fleeting experiences, almost manipulating the
suffering of others to make only an “experience” of self-fulfilling
service.
The Church lived solidarity in a continuous and “institutionalised”
way: “All who believed were together and had all things in common;
they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among
all according to each one’s need” (Acts 2:44–45). Volunteering should
lead to life choices and attitudes of permanent solidarity towards
others, particularly toward young people in need. The SMV is a
pedagogy that leads to assuming consistent attitudes and life
projects for social transformation and ecclesial commitment. For
this reason, constancy, perseverance, responsibility in voluntary
service in an organised and continuous form are the characteristics
that qualify love as “faithful”.
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2.5. EUCHARIST: SACRAMENT OF LOVE
[53] The Eucharist is the sacrament of love that renews the life of the Church.
In the eucharistic celebration, the liturgy of life is celebrated, and it is
the eucharistic food that renews faith and offers the strength to live
an intensely Christian commitment in society as “honest citizens”.
Participation in the eucharistic sacrament transforms life into a Eucharist,
that is, into a life that is at the service, in a spirit of self-giving, as “broken
bread”. In order to be full and constant, love of neighbour needs to feed on
the furnace of divine charity. This is a life that is centred on the mystery
of the Eucharist10. In it, each volunteer finds the energy necessary to be
salt of the earth and light of the world, engaging in social transformation
living a eucharistic life.
The Eucharist commits us to service and to the poor. Significantly, in
their account of the Last Supper, the three synoptic Gospels recount the
institution of the Eucharist, while the Gospel of John relates the narration
of the “washing of the feet” as a way of bringing out its profound meaning,
in which Jesus appears as the teacher of communion and of service (cf.
Jn 13:1–20). For his part, the apostle Paul says that it is “unworthy” of a
Christian community to partake of the Lord’s Supper amid division and
indifference towards the poor11 (cf. 1 Cor 11:17–22, 27–34).
Universal love is expressed in a missionary eucharistic heart: “We cannot
approach the eucharistic table without being drawn into the mission
which, beginning in the very heart of God, is meant to reach all people.
Missionary outreach is thus an essential part of the eucharistic form
of the Christian life”12.
10 Cf. John Paul II, Discourse at FOCSIV (14/12/2002).
11 Cf. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 20.
12 Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, 84.
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IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOLUNTEERING
2.6. MARY: ICON OF VOLUNTEERING
[54] In Mary we find the icon of the volunteer. Faced with God’s plan, Mary
abandons herself, believes and accepts the mission. Her free and
generous “yes” moves her to service, to availability, to sensitivity for
the needs of others. Mary listens, decides and acts, being a model of
Christian volunteering13.The path that Mary walks is the same path on
which all volunteers are called to journey. The Virgin Mary is faithful to
God having motherly and significant presence in the life of Jesus, in the
sadness of the Cross, in the joy of the Resurrection and in the community
of disciples. In Mary, icon of missionary volunteering, all the volunteers
find a mother who welcomes, a teacher who educates and a guide that
leads in the journey of life.
3 Volunteering
in the Salesian tradition
3.1. DON BOSCO
[55] The Salesian dimension of our volunteering proposal leads us to look at
Don Bosco as a model. As a teenager, he used his time and gifts to do
good for his peers. He entertained, advised, promoted them culturally
through stories and readings, educated them morally and evangelised
them. The young John Bosco offered his time, talents and small savings
to encourage his “first oratory” in Becchi, preparing entertainment with
the material he had at hand14. This attitude and the various initiatives
of service towards others were also present during his stay in Chieri,
where he helped his companions, explaining the lessons, offering healthy
entertainment and, in particular, bringing them together in a ‘cheerful
13 Cf. Francis, Discourse to World Youth Day Volunteers (Krakow 31/07/2016).
14 Cf. Bosco G., Memorie dell’Oratorio, in Istituto Storico Salesiano; in Fonti Salesiane, Don Bosco e la sua opera
(LAS-Roma 2014) 1170–1308.
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society’ to help them grow in a personal and Christian way. This eagerness
to do good to the young became a lifelong commitment and he decided
to enter the seminary to dedicate himself without limit to God and to
young people15.
As a young priest, accompanied by his spiritual director, he elaborated
his life project, offered himself voluntarily to serve the lost in prisons and
later became father and friend of the poor young people and immigrants
in Turin. Overcoming the temptation of a comfortable life, moved by faith,
he made a free and generous choice in favour of the poorest among
young people. He went to the peripheries to live in the insecurity and
uncertainty to be close to the abandoned young people. He did not just
offer them a few crumbs of time and service, but all his life: “For you, I
study; for you, I work; for you, I live, for you, I am willing to give life”16.
3.2. THE LAY AND YOUNG AS
PROTAGONISTS IN VALDOCCO
[56] His decision to do good to the young became expansive and contagious
and consequently involved many people in his adventure:
He fostered participation and the sharing of responsibility by
ecclesiastics and laity, men and women. They helped him to
teach catechism and other classes, assist in church, lead the
youngsters in prayer, prepare them for their first Communion
and Confirmation, keep order in the playground where they pla-
yed with the boys, and help the more needy to find employment
with some honest patron. Meanwhile Don Bosco took good care
of their spiritual life, with personal encounters, conferences,
spiritual direction and the administration of the sacraments17.
15 Cf. Bosco G. Memorie del Oratorio, 1214 s.
16 Rufino D., Cronaca Dell ‘Oratorio, Archivo Salesiano Centrale 110, ms. 5,10.
17 GC 24, 71.
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IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOLUNTEERING
This participation and leading role is evident in the Regulation of the
Oratory of Saint Francis de Sales where there are several functions that
are external18, to which the best Oratorians were invited to collaborate:
assistants, sacristans, supervisors (animators of the Oratories), catechists,
“peacemakers” (to prevent fights, etc.), singers and people in charge of
recreation (animators, game organisers and supervisors). Interesting is
the role of the “protectors” who, like the patronages of St Vincent de Paul19,
seek to accompany the poorest, the apprentices and craftsmen to find
a good patron with whom to continue to learn a respectable trade and
begin to earn a living. The capacity of Don Bosco to involve so many people
together for the fulfilment of good is truly impressive.
[57] Through the sodalities, Don Bosco fostered youthful protagonism
that educated young people and committed them to voluntarily give
themselves in service to others. It was an organised form of associative
experience, which relied on the initiative and the abilities of the young
people themselves.
In the apostolate, his greatest collaborators were the boys who
had lived with him for some time and shared with him service of
their neighbour in the most abandoned ones. Those most clo-
sely attached to Don Bosco carried out this service among their
peers through the various Sodalities: those of the Immaculate
Conception, the Blessed Sacrament, St Louis and St Joseph.
Everyone followed the example of Don Bosco; he in turn pointed
to St Francis de Sales, principal patron of the Oratory, as a mo-
del of apostolic dedication and loving kindness. Such examples
attracted some of the youngsters even to truly heroic acts of
virtue. On 18 December 1859, he started up with some of them
the Society of St Francis de Sales20.
18 Bosco G., Regolamento dell’Oratorio di San Francesco di Sales per gli esterni (Torino, Tipografia Salesiana 1877);
in Fonti Salesiane, 523–595.
19 Stella P., Don Bosco nella storia della religiosità cattolica, II (Roma 1969) 347.
20 GC 24, 72.
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[58] In this way, Don Bosco formed with them “Conferences” (St Vincent de
Paul, St Francis de Sales), “Societies” (Mutual Help) and “Sodalities” (St
Louis, Immaculate Conception, Knights of the Altar, St Joseph) in the
Oratory, which began to be organised in 1847. The sodalities enjoyed a
healthy autonomy, animated by the young people themselves, and each
had its own characteristics and offered possibilities to acquire personal
and spiritual values and commitment to life and apostolate21.
The Sodality of Saint Louis was, among these groups, the most deeply
rooted in the social and suburban milieu of Turin, and it was in direct
contact with the Society of St Vincent de Paul in its charitable mission.
Both gave a striking testimony of service to the sick and the poor during
the time of cholera22.
The Society of Mutual Help was created by Don Bosco for the
accompaniment, assistance and employment advice for his small
apprentices and workers. It was then merged with the conferences of
St Vincent de Paul organised in the three Oratories of St Francis de
Sales, St Louis and Guardian Angel after the cholera epidemic23. It had
as its principal function the spiritual formation of young apprentices
and workers and the practice of charity.
The Conference of St Vincent grouped people of various kinds and social
belonging to enhance their charitable works consisting of popular and
agricultural schools, catechesis, religious and social assistance to the
poor24.
21 Da Franca C., Con Don Bosco y como Don Bosco: Jóvenes asociados en Movimiento. Encuentro Regional del Mo-
vimiento Juvenil Salesiano (Cumbayá - Ecuador, from October 21 to 23, 2010) 7; in http://www.donbosco.
org.ar /recursos_detalle.php?codigo=1405 (accessed 20/06/2017).
22 Stella, 352–353.
23 Braido P., Don Bosco prete dei giovani nel secolo delle libertà, I (Roma 2003) 319–320.
24 Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul was the most similar to what we now call “Caritas”, or ecclesial services of
social volunteering. The Conference had been instituted in Turin in 1850 by Count Carlos Cays de Caselette, who
died as a Salesian, at age 69, in 1882. The Society of St Vincent had 5 Conferences, in the city when Don Bosco
promoted in the Oratory a branch of the one that worked in La Consolata. In Valdocco, it also maintained its
popular character and its work among mendicant families. Don Bosco was only an honorary member, since the
Society of St Vincent had been, since its foundation, a specifically secular institution. Cf. Da Franca C., 9.
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IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOLUNTEERING
The movement of charitable and educational works and activities raised
by Don Bosco in Valdocco perfectly replicated the charitable movement
promoted and nourished by the Society of St Vincent, generating an
army of volunteers among its collaborators and young people.
3.3. A PARADIGMATIC CASE:
THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC
[59] The cholera epidemic of 185425 is a paradigmatic case of the generosity
of Don Bosco’s young people. There were few who had the courage to
volunteer to heal the sick from the deadly disease. Don Bosco invited
the eldest of his young people, among whom were the emerging
models of the future Salesians. In response to an appeal from the civil
authorities, fourteen offered themselves, and then later thirty, who
devoted themselves with such zeal, self-denial and courage, that they
received public admiration. On August 5, the Feast of Our Lady of Snow,
Don Bosco spoke to the young people, saying: “I want all of us to place our
soul and body in the hands of Mary. If all of you live in the grace of God and
do not commit any mortal sin, I assure you that none of you will be touched
by cholera”. They were days of scorching heat, weariness, danger and
nauseating stench. Michael Rua (17 years old) was attacked with stones
by angry people. John Baptist Francesia (16 years old) recalled: “There
were many times I myself, a young man, had to encourage the elders to
approach the isolated victims”. During the process of beatification of Don
Bosco, John Baptist Anfossi revealed: “I had the fortune to accompany
Don Bosco on several visits to the cholera zones. I was only 14 years old,
and I remember that doing my work as a nurse proved a great tranquillity,
resting in the hope of being saved, a hope that Don Bosco had infused
in his students”. With the autumn rains the pestilence was over. Don
Bosco’s young volunteers were not touched by cholera.
25 This epidemic, especially attacked the Borgo Dora district, having infected 2,533 people, of whom 1,438 died.
The parish of the Oratory, St Simon and St Judas had 53% of the deaths. Cf. Braido P., Don Bosco prete nel
secolo delle libertà, I, 263–264. Cf. MB V, 76–103.
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3.4. A VAST ORGANISED
CHARITY MOVEMENT
[60] As Don Bosco responds to the challenges posed by the social reality of the
young people in the popular milieu, a movement of charity emerges which
expands in concentric circles around the range of pastoral responses.
Responding to the needs of young people demands from time to time new
answers, which requires a greater number of people and organisational
initiatives.
Their project is not just a welfare scheme but one that seeks to offer
them an integral, substantially Christian education that will enable
them to live and make them responsible for the transformations of
society, for the good of the poorest people. This leads him/her to
articulate a wide variety of services and initiatives to achieve this
goal: festive Oratories, night schools, boarding schools, animation
of nearby Oratories, educational and pastoral publications, youth
associations, vocational training workshops, schools, parishes and
missions.
[61] All this impressive movement for young people is possible thanks to the
participation of so many people, especially the Salesian cooperators
who formed “an organised group, ready to do much good.” Although Don
Bosco’s insistence rests on financial aid, he shows the participation
of the laity in the midst of their mission by offering their time and
qualities: “The Oratory was attended by these ecclesiastics. But this was
not enough: the necessity increased with the night and Sunday schools
... When, behold, several lords came also to his aid... I would like to tell
you now, to the glory of the Turin ladies, how many of them, although of
conspicuous and delicate families, did not show disgust to take in their
hands those jackets, those trousers and arrange them with their own
hands, totally ripped and perhaps never passed through water, take them
themselves, I say, and wash them, mend them and give them to the poor
boys.” This highlights their essential and leading role in the Salesian
work: “Here, then, thanks to the help of many people, both female and
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IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOLUNTEERING
male cooperators, things could be done that each one on his or her own
could never have done ... This is your work, noble cooperators”26.
Don Bosco promotes justice and charity and creates an awareness of
social problems, as he will say in Barcelona, April 15, 1886: “The young
man who grows in your streets will first beg for alms, then he will take a
revolver to demand it”27. He was therefore a citizen concerned for the
welfare of all in society, grounded from his Christian commitment. He did
not intend to solve the problems individually, but instead, he responded
by communicating, conveying his zeal, and organising a vast volunteer
movement in his pastoral educational project, which included young
people themselves as protagonists.
3.5. MISSIONARY FIRE SEIZES YOUNG PEOPLE
[62] International volunteering undoubtedly awakens in many young people
enthusiasm for adventure, curiosity and generosity; in equal measure,
Don Bosco instilled enthusiasm and hope in the hearts of the oratorians
of Valdocco when he spoke and invited them to the missions:
The chronicle warns that these words (the invitation to the mis-
sions) provoked a fire in the hearts of the young, so that most
wanted ardently to leave, even immediately, to the distant Mis-
sions.28.
A very particular atmosphere was created around the missionary
expedition. “A new excitement had been launched among Salesian students
and young people. Vocations were multiplied to the ecclesiastical state.
26 The first conference of Don Bosco to the Salesian Cooperators of Turin, given on the afternoon of May 16,
1878 in Valdocco offers us a precious testimony of the lay protagonism in the work of Don Bosco and the
expansive heart of the saint who wished to extend the good to the youth to the whole world. We quote some
excerpts from the conference (cf. MB XIII, 624–630; in Fonti Salesiane 906-912).
27 MB XVIII, 85.
28 MB XI, 407.
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The Salesian dimension of our
volunteering proposal leads us to
look at Don Bosco as a model
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IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOLUNTEERING
Significantly increased were the requests to join the Congregation. The
missionary ardour had seized all”29.This was the case of the teenager
Luigi Versiglia, who entered the Oratory with no intention of becoming
a priest. But, due to his fascination with Don Bosco and having seen
one of the missionary expeditions from the Basilica of Mary Help of
Christians, he felt the missionary call, arriving to be a Salesian bishop
and protomartyr in China.
Father Orione will remember with emotion: “We only dreamed of seas
to cross and souls to save ... we begged Jesus to be able grow quickly
so that we could get to work soon and run to save distant brethren on
distant beaches”30.
[63] The Salesians who volunteered to leave31 and were sent on the first and
successive expeditions were very young32. The first Salesian expedition
had an average age of 26; the average age of the first FMA expedition
was 20 years. Luis Lasagna, head of the expedition to Uruguay, was 26
years old. Think of other volunteers for the missions, saints whose cause
of canonisation is in process: Blessed Luis Variara at age 19 was with the
lepers of Agua de Dios in Colombia; Saint Calisto Caravario to the Far
East at 21 years; the Servants of God Esteban Ferrando (28), Francisco
Convertini (29) Constantine Vendrame (29) and Orestes Marengo (17) to
India; Carlos della Torre (25) to China and Thailand; José Vandor (27) to
Cuba; Carlos Crespi Croci (32) to Ecuador. A significant testimony is the
Salesian voluntary missionary cooperator in Brazil, the venerable Attilio
Giordani, who left as an adult with his family in Mato Grosso.
29 MB XI, 147.
30 Orione L., Appunti spirituali del 1917 (Scritti 61,13); quoted in AA.VV. Don Orione and e il Novecento. Atti
del Convegno di Studi (Roma, 1–3/03/2002) 190–191.
31 Don Bosco appeals to the voluntary disposition of candidates for missions: “Those who feel inclined to go to
foreign missions, must Submit a written request, in which they express their willingness to go to those lands.”
(our translation) (Circular at Salesians, Turin, February 5, 1875), Fonti Salesiane 257.
32 The first expedition of the Salesians: Fr. Juan Cagliero (37), Fr. Juan Allavena (20), Fr. Valentín Cassini (24);
P. José Fagnano (31) P. Domingo Tomatis (26), Juan Bautista Baccino (32), Coadjutor Bartolomé Scavini (36),
Bartolomé Molinaris (21), Vicente Gioia (21), Esteban Belmonte (29). The first expedition of the Daughters of
Mary Help of Christians: Angela Cassulo (25), Teresa Gedda (24), Ángela Vallese (23), Teresa Mazzarello (18),
Ángela Negris (18), Juana Borga (17). Cf. Valentini E. Profili di missionari Salesiani e Figlie di Maria Ausiliatrice
(Roma 1975) 1–63. Cf. Lenti A. Don Bosco: History and Spirit, Vol. 6. Expansion of the Salesian Work in the New
World and Ecclesiological Confrontation at Home (Rome 2009) 1–113.
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[64] From all this we can conclude that Don Bosco promoted volunteering as:
a) bearing first-hand witness with his generous and total
commitment for the poorest young people;
b) eliciting youthful advocacy, where young people respond
freely, spontaneously and generously; being, on the one hand,
close collaborators and, on the other hand, beneficiaries of
its strongly educational nature;
c) being able to summon thousands of people in the evangelising
and social project;
d) inspiring in the young people lively ideals of life that led to
radical and heroic charitable options (such as the case of the
cholera crisis, absolute consecration to works of charity in the
Society of St Francis de Sales, overseas missions);
e) finding their solid and deep motivation in the faith that
becomes operative in an ardent and effective charity. Religious
experience is undoubtedly crucial and is the force behind its
social impetus to personal development;
f) establishing an organised way (regulations, companies,
association of cooperators ...). The charity of Don Bosco
goes beyond a feeling of compassion exercised immediately.
It becomes an associated and continuous force to transform
the society of its time;
g) preparing good Christians and honest citizens for society,
who with their civic actions contribute to the common good.
3.6. THE PROPOSAL OF DON BOSCO CONTINUES
[65] Throughout the 150 years of Salesian history we have seen a continuous
development of the associations and various forms of voluntary service
on the part of young people.
Among the many forms of Salesian youth volunteering, the missionary
opens up the social dimension of charity to a spirituality of responsible
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IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOLUNTEERING
service, to a stable trust in young people capable of launching them
towards the world of those who ask for solidarity and help, to combination
with groups that strengthen the formative path, to organic contact
with those who already live a dignified experience of volunteering.
With these fundamental attitudes the formation path of each type of
volunteering begins, which is successively developed with specific
formative itineraries, enriched by the activity of the young people
involved.
Since the 1960s we have witnessed a continuous development of
experiences of young lay missionaries in our environments in various
forms. This is how missionary volunteering arises: from the experiences
of volunteer missionary groups to NGOs.
[66] From the 1980s we can distinguish some phases that contributed to the
qualitative growth of missionary volunteering:
• passage from an isolated initiative to its integration within the
Youth Ministry proposal of the Province;
• involvement of former volunteers in the formation of the young,
until the progressive assumption of responsibility;
• the progressive pastoral actions of volunteers at the local level;
• growth of relations between the Provinces that send volunteers
and the Provinces that accept young missionary volunteers;
• the close link, in some provinces, between volunteering and
vocation ministry;
• increase in the number of vocations in groups of the Salesian
family from volunteers on all continents thanks to an explicit and
guided vocational accompaniment;
• improvement in the quality of the preparation of young
volunteers;
• increase in the number of volunteers who come from our
educational and pastoral environments;
• expansion of the opening of the receiving communities, which
recognises the wealth derived from the presence of volunteers,
their lives and their mission;
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• increase in the number of volunteers who, having returned from
their missionary experiences, commit themselves “at home”. In
fact, some structures of the European Provinces emerged with
the support of the former volunteers returned from experiences
lived abroad;
• growth of missionary cooperation and lay missionary volunteering.
There is ample space for long-term volunteering. Many lay
people go on a mission with the whole family. Fascinated by the
missionary charism of Don Bosco, they offer the competence of
their profession and the testimony of their charity with the work
of the missionaries.
[67] Salesian missionary volunteering proposed to young people shows the
values of the Gospel with the witness of selfless service and solidarity in
education and in the sociopolitical commitment that reaches the realities
of family, work and culture. From today’s experience emerges an SMV that,
through the young people, embraces great areas of intervention: culture,
social assistance, free time, cooperative development, group animation,
education to the faith, formation of catechists and pastoral agents.
We, the children of Don Bosco, offer our contribution to the
missionary Church, which goes out to the geographical, cul-
tural and existential peripheries to promote a culture of com-
mitment and solidarity that helps to overcome indifference and
individualism. We are determined to invest in an evangelisation
that knows how to intervene in the needs of humanity, especia-
lly the poorest, and a great educational work to promote the
formation of a new mentality and new lifestyles. True ethical
and cultural revolutions can be acted upon by people who live
by cultivating a reason enlightened by love, by that perception
of the world and of ourselves that only the heart can offer. To
convert the mind and transform social structures the Gospel,
the Word of God addressed to man for his salvation is sufficient.
Changing the world is at hand. Just change the world around
us, caring for the hungry, the exploited and the sick. The young
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IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOLUNTEERING
volunteers of today, within the Salesian family, are called to
continue the dream of Don Bosco: to be missionaries of the
young, to care for the poor, to bring to them the joyful messa-
ge of salvation, to make them experience the closeness of God
and the sweetness of His love33.
3.7. SALESIAN SPIRITUALITY
AND VOLUNTEERING
[68] The GC 24 indicated some fundamental lines of spirituality to be shared
with the laity34:
• preferential love for young people, especially the poorest: the
pastoral charity;
• the spirituality of the relationship: The family spirit;
• commitment in the Church for the world;
• spirituality of daily life and work;
• the Preventive System: in permanent listening to God and the
human person.
[69] The experience of volunteering suggests three elements that
always appear in their spiritual adventure: service, communion and
mysticism.
[70]
a. Service
It is the joy that produces a demanding mission and commitment.
This intense activity gives birth to a generous heart. It is that
apostolic passion of pastoral charity that leads to love with
33 Chávez P. Omelia nella celebrazione eucaristica della spedizione missionaria n. 144 (Valdocco, 29.09.2013), In
http://www.volint.it /vis/ files/RM_OmeliaSpedizioneMissionaria_29sett13.pdf (accessed 20/06/2017).
34 Cf. GC 24, 89–100. Also, the FRSYM, speaking of the spirituality of the SMV, offers in a concentrated way some
determining elements: “the apostolic interiority, characterised by the spirit of the” da mihi animas”; the centrality of
Christ, Good Shepherd, who demands from the missionary volunteer a pastoral pedagogical attitude in the relationship
of his recipients; the educational commitment; the work done with joy; the Marian dimension that situates missionary
action and volunteering as participation of the ecclesial motherhood of Mary Help of Christians”, 160.
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[71]
generosity, without setting limits and fears. It is the charity that
becomes fantasy of love, full of creativity and initiatives, flexible
in its ability to carry out its mission. In Salesian vocabulary we can
translate it as the “oratorian heart” (generous, open, sympathetic,
creative, sensitive, personalised ...): sanctified work. It is the
“da mihi animas caetera tolle.” The mystic of the first part: the
enthusiastic zeal for self-giving (da mihi animas), demands the
corresponding generous renunciation of the second (cœtera tolle).
b. Communion
An intense element in the experience of volunteering is the strong
experience of communion with the beneficiaries of the mission,
who are not mere numbers but names of people with whom
the volunteer is connected in a rich exchange of humanity and
affection; communion is with a new reality and a new culture;
the festive communion with a Christian community that dreams,
fulfils and celebrates; the paternal and experienced communion
with the religious community that gives balance, serenity and
helps to internalise the experience; the enriching community of
volunteers who share experience, mission and life. All this can
be expressed in the Salesian way—the family spirit, which is not
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IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOLUNTEERING
The service. It is the joy that a
demanding mission and service
produces. An intense activity
ferments a generous heart
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just platitudinous, but is the sensitive expression of God-family,
of the Church-family.
[72]
c. Mysticism
There is an impact with the reality that transforms. It implies the
discovery of oneself, of one’s own limits, of one’s own potentials,
miseries and riches; the discovery of reality, sometimes harsh and
raw, in the face of poverty and injustice; the discovery of great
things in small ones, of the essential ones in what seemed trivial;
the discovery of the joy lived in the community with simplicity; the
discovery of God in all this and in a personal relationship. We can
call all this the development of the capacity to be contemplative
in action35 or, better, contemplation with open eyes.
It is the Samaritan contemplation that helps us to “see” the wounded
man on the road. This mysticism means that volunteering is not
a passing sentimentality, but an event of love that is nourished,
that takes root, that finds deep and stable reasons for the love of
Christ. It is a love already experienced in the very gift of service, in
communion with others, but that requires to be ‘face-to-face’ with
the source of love.
It is a love that is matured in the silence of the intimacy of
the encounter, in filial prayer, in listening to the Word, in the
Sacraments. In the Salesian spirituality, Don Bosco offers us the
image of two columns in which the experience of volunteering is
invited to be secured: in the Eucharist—that encounter with Christ
who gives himself freely and with freedom “when he was betrayed
and entered into his passion, voluntarily accepted36, he took bread…“;
and which establishes the eternal covenant, the expression of a
stable and permanent love—”this is the cup of my Blood, the blood
of the new and everlasting covenant that shall be poured out for
35 Chávez P. Wake up the world and enlighten the future. Retreat talks (Bengaluru 2016) 81–92. It offers a rich
presentation of contemplation in Salesian action: It is a prayer that perceives and lives the saving events,
finding its value in what others consider banal; the real prayer that is the life that develops according to the
will of the Father at the service of humanity; it is the habitual disposition of the soul that performs the Will
of God with ease, perseverance and great joy; it is the awareness of being instruments of God’s action at the
service of young people, celebrating the liturgy of life.
36 In the eucharistic prayer II, the Latin text indicates that the attitude of Jesus is “Qui cum passioni voluntarie
traderetur”; many languages translate it as “voluntarily”, other translations as “freely”.
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IDENTITY OF SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOLUNTEERING
you.” In this way the young person is led to willingly become a
food for others and to be bestowed (poured) with a responsible
commitment. The other column, Mary, is a model of the virtues
of the volunteer, icon of the motherhood of the Church and of the
community that welcomes the volunteer37.
37 Cf. Part II 2.5–6.
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PO F L III
TYPES,
RCHARACTERISTICS
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1 Types
[73] In our Congregation, there is an intense and broad youth commitment,
which reveals new sensibilities and perspectives. This new youth
involvement in the Salesian mission is born, developed and strengthened
in the educational and pastoral communities that motivate young people
to be missionaries of other young people.
Provinces are committed to the formation of young people in various
areas: Oratories, youth centres, parishes, catechesis, schools and social
situations to promote a vocational culture and robust experience of
volunteering.
When we talk about the typology of volunteering, we can see various
expressions of what is called “volunteering in the Salesian mission”. One
of them is the Salesian Missionary Volunteering, on which this document
is focused. However, it is important to describe different concepts that
are sometimes related to volunteering in order to better focus on SMV.
1.1. VARIOUS REALITIES THAT
ARE CALLED VOLUNTEERING
[74] There are several terminologies that, if not clarified, can create confusion
and distort the various proposals. Each of these realities has its identity,
purpose and demands. Sometimes, all these different realities are
inaccurately referred to as volunteering. Each has its value and its
objective, which may well find a place in the Salesian mission; but it is
important to distinguish all these realities and forms of “volunteering”
or solidarity action to better understand and respect their identities
and know how to integrate them into the mission.
a. Cooperation offers professional competence in some field
of humanitarian development. Generally, cooperation carries
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TYPES, CHARACTERISTICS AND PROFILE OF SMV
out its activity outside its country of residence. Its great
contribution is the professionalism that can contribute to
qualify a type of international volunteering.
b. Civil Service is the service that citizens of a State can provide
in favour of public or private entities. They can be carried out
freely, or be alternative to particular normative obligations,
such as replacing compulsory military service. The State
assumes all the economic expenses of the citizen in service
(transport, maintenance and compensation). It can be an
opportune instrument to facilitate the economic support of
volunteering.
c. Internship is the professional practice performed by a student
to put their knowledge and skills into practice. The trainee is
an apprentice who carries out this practice with the intention
of obtaining field experience, while the person in charge of
guiding him/her is usually known as a tutor or mentor. After
completing the curricular requirement, some of interns choose
to continue their activities in the form of voluntary service in
various social settings.
d. Solidarity tourism refers to a person or group that participates
in a specific way during their holidays as a way of getting to
know another culture or a humanitarian project, and become
more aware of the situation of developing countries. This
can be a good educational opportunity to prepare for future
volunteering.
e. Cultural Exchange involves a student abroad to learn about the
customs, traditions and language of another nation. In our case
it can be hosted in a Salesian institution while offering some
voluntary service, alternating it with other cultural activities.
f. Volunteering is the activity in which time and skills are
dedicated to work and serving a community or a group of
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people, in an organised way, by one’s own free decision, free and
without economic remuneration, with the aim of contributing
to the improvement of their living conditions.
However, we will refer to “volunteering” only. Within this reality, without
wishing to be exhaustive, there is a universe of modalities, forms, criteria,
times, places, profiles, types of activities.
1.2. ACCORDING TO THE PLACE
[75]
a. Local volunteering develops in the environment in which the
volunteer lives and works; they are usually the animators of the
various educational-pastoral activities of the work. The majority
of young people find at the local level a space for commitment and
self-giving, sometimes serving full-time and for a prolonged period
of time, including integrating themselves in the local educative
and pastoral or even religious community. Even though this kind
of volunteering does not require leaving his/her own community
to go elsewhere, it still complies with the requirements of true
Salesian Missionary Volunteering.
b. National volunteering originated from the home nation and from
Salesian works presented by other institutions or by private
initiatives. Internal national volunteers carry out a kind of missionary
and vocational volunteering, with their respective demands, leaving
their own community to serve another one. This local volunteering
is developed both in the field of educational and social action as
well as in the fields of evangelising and missionary.
[76]
c. International Volunteering is when volunteers are sent or received
from different countries. Some are sent directly by the Provincial
Youth Ministry from one Province to another. Others come from
Salesian cooperation organisations or from other institutions. In
general, this service is governed by contracts and agreements
with the organisations of origin. This kind of volunteering is
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TYPES, CHARACTERISTICS AND PROFILE OF SMV
characterised by professional competencies and sufficient personal
maturity enriched by genuine motivations. Typically, they are long-
term experiences, not less than a year.
1.3. ACCORDING TO DURATION
[77]
a. Brief services are rather specific and occasional, as an expression
of direct responses to solidarity (emergencies) or educational
(specific actions of young people of some institution). Being valid
interventions, they still do not enter into the vision of volunteering
that offers continuity in service.
b. Continued cases are where professionals or students, or people with
family responsibilities who, due to their commitments, dedicate
some weekly hours to the local volunteer service. They are valid
interventions motivated by options and permanent values of life.
These are interventions that offer continuity to a project.
c. Intense are the so-called “missionary weeks” or “summer missions”
or “volunteer experiences”. This type of experience, in addition
to doing some good in the communities they host, have a strong
impact on the lives of the young people who perform them. This
type of volunteering is loaded with an enormous educational and
motivational force that prepares adolescents and young people
for more consistent interventions in the future, as well as for their
life project.
d. Long volunteer experiences range from 1 to 2 years. In these
proposals, the volunteer gains the experience of inclusion in a
community or new culture, in which continuity of service can be
developed and maintained.
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1.4. ACCORDING TO AGE
[78]
a. Education towards volunteering. This starts from childhood
into adolescence, and is a process with formative itineraries and
short and specific experiences that help to mature attitudes and
values of volunteering. At this point, programmes of “Education to
Development” and “Education to Global Citizenship” are developed,
offering a critical reading of the socioeconomic reality at the world
level, including elements of transformational action of the children
and young people.
b. Initiation to volunteering. This normally involces the experiences
offered at the end of high school (17–20 years old) in our Oratories,
youth centres or social settings and missions. These experiences
of volunteering, both long-term and short-term, really help young
people to develop their individual life project. It is volunteering
with a strong vocational profile. This type of experience must be
carried out at local or national level, discouraging international
volunteering for this period.
c. Youth engagement age. Volunteer services are performed by
young people (aged 21–35) who already have professional skills,
allowing their intervention to be more mature and incisive from
a professional point of view. The volunteer proposal has proved
to be a very effective means of pastoral work with adult youth,
particularly in university ministry. This is an ideal period for
international volunteering.
d. Adulthood. While adults are not the priority recipients of our
mission, they are our close collaborators. Volunteering in adulthood
tends to be continuous and also international. Adults can offer rich
personal experience and professionalism (think of retired people
with great potential for the mission).
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TYPES, CHARACTERISTICS AND PROFILE OF SMV
1.5. ACCORDING TO THE INCLUSION
IN THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY
[79]
a. Within the community. Volunteers live in the religious community
or in the different sectors that are under the responsibility of the
community. They are fully integrated into the life and activities of
the Salesian community (planning, fraternity, prayer). Volunteers
integrated to the community fulfil an intense experience of life
and work. The methods may vary according to the profile of the
volunteers. This integration facilitates their complete inclusion
in the Educative and Pastoral Community (EPC).
b. Community of volunteers. They live with the same intensity as in the
mission, but they are housed in structures intended for volunteers,
who, according to their circumstances, will encounter community
experience with a greater or less intensity. The relationship with
the religious community and participation in their activities and life
can vary according to the contexts and the profile of the volunteers.
c. External to the community. They live outside the religious
community. They spend part of their time collaborating on specific
activities as the case may be. As far as their work is concerned, they
have the same requirements as the volunteer who is integrated
into the community.
1.6. ACCORDING
TO THE FORM OF ORGANISATION
[80]
a. Salesian Missionary Volunteering. Volunteering is coordinated
through the local and Provincial Salesian Youth Ministry with
a robust project inserted in the Provincial SEPP. Volunteers
are referred to the SMV, sent from a house or by a Province for
another Salesian presence, following the rules and criteria of the
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Provincial Volunteer Project. This is the option and priority of the
Congregation.
b. Volunteering of NGOs or other institutions related to Salesians.
Volunteering is coordinated through recognised civil organisations
offering volunteering (NGO or similar) and incorporated to a
greater or lesser extent, according to the contexts, in the Salesian
Educative and Pastoral Project of a Province. This type of volunteer
can be referred to the SMV to the extent that it is identified with
the Provincial Salesian Missionary Volunteer Project of the original
province.
c. Volunteering of NGOs or other non-Salesian civil or ecclesial
institutions. There are various organisations (NGOs) or ecclesial
institutions (dioceses, movements), which according to their
characteristics and identity, send volunteers to Salesian presences.
The agreements are made directly between the Salesian Province
and each individual institution.
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TYPES, CHARACTERISTICS AND PROFILE OF SMV
[81]
OPERATIVE CRITERIA AND STANDARDS
• “Volunteering” should not be confused with other valid forms of social
promotion or cultural exchange.
• The SMV is born of motivations of faith in Jesus Christ, enriched by
the Salesian charismatic characteristics.
• The SMV is carried out locally, nationally and internationally.
• The expected time for the SMV is 1 to 2 years.
• The age of SMV ranges from 17 to 35 years. The international SMV starts
from the age of 21.
• The form of integration of the SMV into the Salesian community can be
as internal or community volunteers, or as external to the community.
• The Salesian community, while maintaining the spirit of welcome,
maintains places and moments proper to the religious community.
• The sending and receiving of volunteers if the responsibility of the
Provincial Community, represented by the Provincial, who can be
instrumentally assisted by various types of organisations.
2 Characteristics of SMV
[82]
The Salesian missionary volunteering proposes the values of
the Gospel with the witness of selfless service and solidarity in
education and in the sociopolitical commitment that reaches
the realities of family, work and culture1.
1 FRSYM, 160.
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The most outstanding characteristics of SMV that can be shared by all
types of volunteers in the Salesian mission are listed below2.
1. Lay. Participating in the Salesian project, joining their lay identity
with the religious one in an educational, social and missionary
movement. The volunteer is an agent of transformation of society
according to the values of the Kingdom, with a professionalism
that brings richness for the mission.
2. Youthful. The service is performed with youthful spirit, in tune with
those being served, demonstrating sensitivity to their world and
problems. It does not exclude adults who accept the characteristics
of volunteering.
3. Missionary. The volunteer proposes the values of the Gospel, offers
testimony and is inspired by the Gospel. Motivated by a vision of
faith, he/she brings their testimony and the Word of God out of
their own environment. It involves being sensitive and sympathetic
with the world of poverty and youth marginalisation, where the
“little ones” are the presence of Christ.
4. Salesian. With Don Bosco as a model, the volunteer lives the
Salesian Youth Spirituality and uses the Preventive System as a
framework and pedagogy in action; the Oratorian criterion is his/
her way of being present among the recipients, animated by the
spirit of “da mihi animas”.
5. Educational. The volunteer is preferably incorporated into human
development programmes and acts according to the Preventive
System. He/she is primarily concerned with personal and social
maturity by accepting the challenge of “educating by being educated”.
6. Sociopolitical. The volunteer is actively involved in the sociocultural,
economic and political life, and undertakes to transform it in
2 These characteristics are already proposed, with small changes, in the documents of 1995 and 2008.
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TYPES, CHARACTERISTICS AND PROFILE OF SMV
collaboration with civil and ecclesial institutions. He/she knows
how to make a deep and critical reading of reality.
7. Community. The volunteer lives in a religious community with the
Salesians and/or other volunteers, and is part of an educational
community, sharing the educative and pastoral project. This allows
one to be involved in group experiences, which help to develop
the values of dialogue and self-giving. He/she is also sensitive
to interculturality, knowing how to build bridges with the various
people encountered in their mission.
3 Possible volunteering
activities
[83] The services that volunteering can offer to the Salesian mission are
many in the fields of education, vocational training, evangelisation and
social promotion. For example:
• education, especially attentive to teacher training;
• psychological care, especially with vulnerable children and
adolescents;
• leisure education, sport, music, arts, languages;
• various specialities in technical and vocational training;
• civil construction, architecture, engineering;
• administration and logistics;
• agriculture, breeding, beekeeping, fish farming, water, sanitation;
• training on human rights and social activism;
• Information Technology;
• social communication and editing of texts, web pages;
• health (medicine, nursing, preventive medicine);
• pastoral such as catechesis, youth groups and plans, family
ministry.
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4 Profile of the Salesian
Missionary Volunteer
[84] The profile defined for the volunteer is a horizon towards which one may
walk with patience, respecting processes and times, having a realistic
sense of the actual situation of young candidates. This does not prevent
us from making a demanding volunteering proposal; on the contrary, it
rather proposes challenging paths and goals for a life project.
On the other hand, placing ourselves in the position of the recipients of
our mission, they have the right to be offered collaborators, educators,
friends, models of people rich in humanity, competencies and, in
particular, credible witnesses of the Lord. Although volunteering is a
great gift for those who perform it, we cannot limit it to their personal
and subjective experience. Its validity and opportunity must be evaluated
in relation to the recipients of our mission with whom they interact.
4.1. THE MOTIVATIONS
[85] The theme of motivations has been extensively studied in volunteering.
Certainly, as with any choice, there are no unambiguous motivations, since
they are complex, conscious and less conscious, explicit and implicit.
What is important is that the prevailing conscious motivations are the
most consistent to the mission to which they are called to perform. The
fulfilment of volunteering leads to a purification of motivations.
From the question “Who am I?” the following motivations that reach the
depths of the person arose:
• to serve others freely;
• create bridges between people and cultures through solidarity;
• to give to those who have less with what God has given me;
• entering into communion with the giving and receiving people;
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TYPES, CHARACTERISTICS AND PROFILE OF SMV
• discovering one’s life plan by serving others;
• love Christ in one’s neighbour.
The dominant motivation that should guide a SMV is none other than
“loving Jesus in others” and “loving as Jesus loved.” This fundamental
attitude will take shape in various forms of social action: commitment
to justice, solidarity, equality, human rights, the integral promotion of
people, particularly the most vulnerable. This dominant motivation is
the core of an infinite number of initiatives.
[86] There are other motivations that help the young person to become better,
although they are still inadequate or insufficient for a SMV:
• have new experiences;
• learn about new places, people, cultures;
• to occupy free time usefully;
• enrich one’s curriculum of study or work;
• look for new job opportunities;
• improve own personal skills;
• study and research cultural and social realities;
• self-assertion;
• search for recognition.
4.2. PERSONAL MATURITY
[87] As in any type of volunteering, it must be rich in human values:
• sufficient physical and mental health;
• flexibility and adaptability to the environment;
• capacity for communication, dialogue and sociability;
• availability for the free service;
• humility and desire to be educated by the environment;
• critical sense of reality and self-criticism;
• sincerity, honesty and transparency;
• respect and appreciation for local people and culture;
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• ability to work as a team;
• affective and sexual maturity;
• equilibrium, serenity and common sense;
• sympathy, optimism and good humour;
• serious dedication to work and responsibility;
• organisation of one’s own time and planning;
• competence and qualification in a professional field.
4.3. CHRISTIAN MATURITY
[88] At this point, the classic challenge arises: what can you propose to those
who are not a Christian or non-practising? It is clear that according to
this profile, he/she does not form part of the SMV, but that does not imply
that other proposals of volunteering in the Salesian mission cannot be
made. He/ she can also be invited to carry out volunteer activities in the
mission, knowing that for many this is a way to discover the faith, and
for some others it is a stable form of humanitarian service according to
their personal convictions. They may even participate in joint meetings
of the SMV but specifying the identity of each one. This demands from
the Salesian community a pastoral wisdom that, on the one hand, knows
how to give his/her place to each person of good will that is offered in the
field of mission and, on the other hand, knows how to make meaningful
and challenging proposals of Christian commitment. They are diversified
proposals in concentric circles according to their Christian and Salesian
identity, as similarly happens in the SYM (Cf. FRSYM 165–167):
• the SMV is a young person who lives and conveys the “joy of the
Gospel”;
• has chosen Christ and lives in ecclesial communion;
• lives volunteering as an expression of social, concrete and operative
charity;
• feels he/she is sent by the Lord and by a community;
• gives a coherent testimony of his/her Christian life;
• feeds his/her faith by the Word of God, prayer and the sacraments;
• lives the Eucharist particularly as the sign of self-giving;
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TYPES, CHARACTERISTICS AND PROFILE OF SMV
• finds in volunteering a way to discover and live out his/her vocation
in the Church and in society;
• his/her missionary vocation requires him/her to reinforce some
common aspects of the Christian life, which are lived with greater
intensity: detachment from one’s land, virtue of strength, sense
of sacrifice, simplicity, sobriety, humility, patience, capacity for
inculturation, a more intense life of prayer and a vision of faith, love
for those most in need and a sense of community.
4.4. PROFESSIONALISM
[89] Above all, young people can offer a qualified service in a particular area.
It is proper to their lay identity to place their skills and competencies in
view of an integral promotion of the person. Being a volunteer does not
diminish in any way one’s professional responsibility; on the contrary, one
is more predisposed to offer it with more dedication. Mission preparation
in these areas certainly presupposes long-term training. A criterion in the
various professional interventions consists in providing for continuity,
offering collaboration for the formation of local staff.
In this field, with appropriate preparation for cooperation and development,
Salesian NGOs offer a rich contribution to the professionalisation of
volunteer service.
4.5. SALESIANITY
[90] Experience indicates that volunteers from Salesian projects, especially if
they have developed animation activities, easily connect with new missions.
Below are some characteristic features of the Salesian missionary style:
• youthful style;
• preference for the poorest among young people;
• educational presence among young people and confidence in
young people;
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• optimism, cheerfulness and a sense of humour;
• Oratorian heart;
• family spirit;
• simple, ecclesial, deep and popular religiosity;
• ability to work practically;
• creativity and flexibility;
• lives a life of chastity as an expression of selfless, transparent love
and as a form of educational outreach for young people;
• sober lifestyle.
TYPES, CHARACTERISTICS AND PROFILE OF SMV
[91]
OPERATIVE CRITERIA AND STANDARDS
• When sending a SMV, one must give special attention to the young
people who have followed a process in the Salesian Youth Ministry, in the
Salesian Youth Movement (SYM), as animators, in groups or missionary
movements.
• Specialised and appropriate formation must be provided for candidates
who do not come from a Salesian background.
• There must be clear provincial criteria for the convocation, discernment,
selection, formation and sending of the Salesian missionary volunteers.
Establish a volunteering project and a directory indicating the routes,
managers, methods, criteria and times for the selection, training and
support of the candidates.
• The Province must take into consideration the young people from the
technical-professional field, since there is a great demand in this area
in the mission fronts.
• The contents, skills and formative experiences must be rich of human
and evangelical values.
• With regard to affective maturity, motivated by a code of conduct, or
even more, by an attitude of total, generous and evangelical devotion, the
SMV undertakes to live in chastity, sobriety and availability especially
during the time of mission3.
3 To live a certain time with undivided heart, a total dedication to the mission, in chastity, sobriety, simplicity
(poverty) and complete availability to a common project (obedience), is not an exclusive privilege of the reli-
gious. This intense evangelical life proposed to the SMV, according to their state of life, will be of great help for
the elaboration of their personal project of life and as an intense human and spiritual educational experience.
On the other hand, these commitments greatly enhance their insertion in the mission by the educational
strength of their testimony to youth and their moral authority. Several volunteer organisations propose it
with excellent results; by way of example: ANG, CEP, ECU, MEG, PLE, PLS, SLK, SUE, SUO...
90
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P IV A PROCESS
IN THE YOUTH
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1 A process, a school of life
[92] One of the characteristics of the SMV, as well as of all volunteering in
the Salesian context, is its educational dimension; it is truly a “school
of life” and for this reason, it is necessary to support the educative and
pastoral processes.
The model for this dynamic is the encounter on the road to Emmaus:
“the missionary approaches the young person and meets him or her with
an attitude of listening and welcome, proclaiming the Gospel and offering
to accompany the young person. Animation helps people to make the good
news their own and assists them in the development of their conscience.
It makes them aware of the motivations that drive their options and their
critical thinking skills. It encourages their active involvement and makes
them responsible agents in their own education”1.
Salesian pastoral and educational activity is a dynamic process
that unfolds and takes into consideration certain fundamental and
complementary dimensions. It is an anthropological, pedagogical and
coherent spiritual frame of reference for accompanying young people
in the delicate process of their growth as human beings in the faith2.
This process offers gradual experiences of service and apostolic
commitment, which converts the SMVs into witnesses and evangelisers
and commits them to the social dimension of charity, making them
protagonists of the construction of a more just, supportive and humane
society3. In this way, young people develop one of the basic characteristics
of Salesian spirituality: the spirit of responsible service4, which will
make them suitable for volunteering.
1 FRSYM, 122.
2 Cf. FRSYM, 140.
3 Cf. FRSYM, 145.
4 Cf. FRSYM, 98.
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A PROCESS IN THE YOUTH MINISTRY
[93] The Salesian Youth Movement (SYM) has proved to be the most effective
educator of volunteers. Through its processes and itineraries, SYM has helped
and still helps many young people to mature, to identify themselves with the
pedagogy and the spirituality of Don Bosco and put themselves at the service
of the mission. Within the SYM, the missionary movements and groups that
grow sensitive to service, interculturality and missionary are noteworthy.
Moreover, volunteering has revealed itself as a great educational and
evangelising opportunity for many young adults and university students
who have not gone through a Salesian route but who want to give their
talents and time to the service of others. In these cases, it is necessary to
envisage appropriate plans for them, to help them discern and mature in
their options. The offering of missionary volunteering to young people from
non-Salesian environments is a gift for the local Church, for society and a
great opportunity to offer them a personal-Christian itinerary of maturity.
It is important to carry out a process that avoids the attraction for a young
person to “parachute in” to volunteering without a sufficient education
programme in volunteering. This runs the risk of the volunteer perceiving
the experience as an “event” or a “new adventure” to experience, without
flourishing into a coherent project of life and commitment.
2 Stages of the journey of
volunteering
[94] Salesian missionary volunteering is a unified reality, an educational
process organically integrated into Salesian Youth Ministry. We suggest
considering these four steps5:
1. developing a culture of volunteering and formation in its values
(selfless service, openness to the other, solidarity ...) throughout
5 Cf. Youth Ministry and Missions Departments, Voluntary Service in the Salesian Mission, Handbook and
Guidelines (Rome 2008) 29–31.
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the entire educative and pastoral process with teenagers and
adolescents;
2. training in voluntary service through diverse experiences
of generous and selfless service such as animation, active
participation in various associations or brief volunteering
experiences;
3. the option of more committed volunteering during a prolonged
period of time;
4. along this journey, and through these voluntary experiences, young
people mature in conscious and lasting vocational choices.
3 A community that sends and
that receives
[95] The community is a fundamental subject in this process of formation
and accompaniment of the volunteer’s maturation.
The Educative and Pastoral Community (EPC) is the “subject and, at
the same time, object and scope of educative-pastoral action”6.The
“animating nucleus” of the EPC summons, motivates and involves the
members of the EPC. In turn, the Salesian religious community, with
its spiritual heritage, its pedagogical style, its relations of fraternity and
co-responsibility in the mission, represents the reference witness for
the charismatic identity7.
6 FRSYM, 108.
7 Cf. FRSYM, 117–118.
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A PROCESS IN THE YOUTH MINISTRY
[96] The volunteer’s community experience can be lived at various levels8.
a. WiththeSalesiancommunitythatsends,theSalesiancommunity
invites and welcomes the young people preparing them for
volunteering. In it, the candidates experience and assume the
values of pedagogy and Salesian spirituality. The volunteer on
mission maintains a healthy communication with the sending
community, sharing his/her experience. In turn, the community
supports them in their experience and, on his/her return, helps
in their reintegration.
b. With the Salesian community that welcomes, volunteers assume
the personal and evangelical riches they discover in the Salesian
community that welcomes them, such as a vocation for education,
passion for the salvation of the young, fraternity, family style and a
life characterised by the life of evangelical counsels. The volunteer’s
presence enriches the Salesian community with a youthful outlook,
making it more sensitive to the world of young people and motivating
it in its apostolic enthusiasm. The local community sees to their
accompaniment and formation during the service in the mission.
c. With the Educative and Pastoral Community, volunteers
become part of the EPC, sharing its Educative and Pastoral
Project, they foster personal relationships, collaboration,
participation and mutual enrichment. The EPC helps them to
integrate in the environment and in the educational project.
d. With the provincial team of the SMV, volunteers are accompanied
by the team, where, thanks to its experience and ability, they become
agents bringing suggestions and ideas to the young people. It is
the link between the communities and the volunteers. The team
accompanies the volunteers by visiting them, ensuring that there is
a good communication between them and the host community. It
guides the preparation, qualification and process of the volunteers
through emails, meetings and dialogue.
e. With the culture that receives them and the local Church,
the volunteer integrates themselves with respect and
8 Cf. Voluntary Service in the Salesian Mission, 41–42.
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humility into a new cultural and ecclesial context and learns
to know and appreciate all the good and noble values that
the new environment offers. As a missionary with a sense
of interculturality, he/she patiently and earnestly learns the
richness and cultural sensibilities inculturating the Gospel.
f. Among the volunteers themselves, the Don Bosco family model,
whether from the local or provincial community, inspires the
relationship between the volunteers. They share the daily work,
the joys and sufferings, the moments of growth, formation and
prayer. In fraternity, they share their experience of volunteering.
4 Formation in SMV
4.1. FORMATIVE CRITERIA
[97] To offer an integral formation as disciple and missionary9, that enables
the volunteer to carry out his/her service preferably as an educator and
evangeliser to young people who are most in need, in the style of Don Bosco.
• Witness: consistent attitudes and behaviours with the recipients
(dialogue, respect, faith, kindness, sensitivity, correctness).
• Know: to have knowledge of the cultural, social, religious and
youth situation; the values, the language and everything that can
be useful for the mission.
• Prepare: acquiring the appropriate professional competences for
the context and the requested service.
• Animate: obtaining the pedagogical and pastoral skills to interact
with young people, enabling their leadership role.
• Take into account the gradual dimension of personal growth,
through a rich itinerary of contents and experiences, knowing how
to abide times without rushing.
• Insist on the values that permeate the daily life of the family,
community, group, study and work environment.
9 Cf. Synod of Bishops of XV Ordinary General Assembly, 160.
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A PROCESS IN THE YOUTH MINISTRY
• Accompany and take care of the development of interiority
throughout the process.
• Prepare for interculturality and the cultural shock, opening up to
other backgrounds.
• Help to live their faith and experience of service with planning,
helping to develop their life project and orienting their vocational
choice in the Church and society.
4.2. THREE STAGES IN FORMATION
[98] The formation that we present below has been outlined taking into account
the needs of those who have volunteered. These needs were identified
in the research conducted in 2016. We consider the three stages of the
“before, during and after”.
[99]
a. Formation before volunteering
Undoubtedly, the immediate and specific formation for the SMV
service is preceded by a broad, long-term formation that has
matured in the educative and pastoral path it has carried out in
the community of origin (SYM, groups, educational centres, youth
centres, parishes). It presupposes interventions of one to three
weeks based on previous practices of volunteering or of missions.
For immediate formation, we identify from the various methods
the most common:
• weekly meetings, such as pre-volunteer groups. This is
possible where candidates live nearby. To these meetings can
be added other activities such as retreats, regional or national
meetings;
• weekend meetings, during a weekend of the month (from
Friday to Sunday), up to ten meetings. This type of proposal
is more frequent when the beneficiaries live geographically
in the same province. Sufficient training should not take less
than 145 hours;
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• intensive meetings, for two or three weeks prior to departure;
• in addition to face-to-face meetings, there are interesting
online training opportunities as a means of complementary
formation.
This immediate formation must be concluded with the ecclesial
and provincial “sending”, which gives relevance to the event and
gives it a community and missionary dimension (to be sent).
The formative schedule must consider several dimensions:
personal, affective, cultural, pedagogical, Salesian, technical,
relational, educational, and theological-pastoral.
Some content that emerged from the questionnaires are
highlighted:
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A PROCESS IN THE YOUTH MINISTRY
[100] Personal development
NEED
CONTENTS
OBJECTIVES
• To know where I am, who I am.
• To learn to communicate.
• To know how to handle
interpersonal relationships.
• SWOT Analysis (Strengths,
Opportunities, Weaknesses,
Threats).
• Individual Life Project.
• Problem solving.
• Effective communication.
• Emotional intelligence.
• How to develop a relationship.
• How to end a relationship.
• To learn to adapt to the new
reality.
• Inculturation.
• Cultural Shock.
• Flexibility and adaptability.
• To know and channel my
emotions.
• The feelings.
• Moments of solitude.
• Know my sexuality.
• Affective maturity.
• To know how to handle moments
of crisis.
• What to do when I am in times
of crisis.
• How to recognise crises.
• Psychological health (burn out).
• Health & Safety.
• Knowledge, prevention and
treatment of the most common
diseases.
• To learn to collaborate with
other people.
• Teamwork.
• Be proactive.
• Appreciate the people I work
with.
• To know volunteering.
• The SMV document, criteria,
profiles, rights and duties.
• Legal and economic aspects.
• Aspects of security and
protection of minors.
• Know and agree to a Code of
Conduct
• Know rules and protocols in
relation to minors.
• Know the local regulations in
this regard.
• To help the volunteers get to
know each other more deeply
and have a plan of action to
grow.
• To train the volunteer in the
art of communicating their
thoughts and emotions.
• To give tools to the volunteers
so they know how to handle
interpersonal relationships.
• To train volunteers to make their
transition easier to another
culture.
• To help young people know how
to handle feelings.
• To learn to handle moments of
crisis.
• To provide important
information.
• To provide teamwork tools.
• To be aware of the identity and
responsibilities in the SMV.
• Interact with the minors in a
calm, safe and educational
environment.
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[101] Educational-pastoral tools
NEED
CONTENTS
• To learn to work with children
and young people.
• Child and adolescent
psychology.
• Conflict management.
• Analysis of job description.
• To know the social responsibility
of a volunteer.
• The volunteer in the religious
• community.
• The volunteer with young
people.
• The volunteer as a contact
person for the beneficiary
community.
• Salesian pedagogy.
• Preventive System.
• Assistance/support.
• To learn how to animate events
and groups.
• Steps for strategic planning.
• Animation of groups.
• Group Dynamics.
OBJECTIVES
• To give tools to volunteers so
they can work with beneficiaries.
• To understand the social
responsibility of the volunteer
within the community where he/
she lives.
• To provide hands-on tools for
working with young people and
children.
• To learn to animate groups and
• events.
[102] Community life
NEED
• To know the meaning of
community life.
• To know how to act when
someone is ill.
CONTENTS
OBJECTIVES
• The figure of the volunteer in the
community.
• Rights and responsibilities.
• Regulations for living a good
community life
• importance of presence.
• To train the volunteer in conflict
resolution within the community
while at the same time raise
awareness of the structures of
local government.
• First aid.
• Basic principles of how to
manage a disease.
• How to use health insurance.
• To give tools to the volunteers
on how to act when they are
unwell.
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[103] Sociopolitical and cultural formation
NEED
• To know the culture.
• To know the dynamics of global
injustice.
• To know the social doctrines of
the Church.
• Language.
CONTENTS
OBJECTIVES
• Important information about the
location of missions.
• Local culture (religious, social,
political aspects).
• To provide important
information of the local
neighbourhood where one will
do mission.
• Colonialism - neocolonialism.
• Underdevelopment and its
causes.
• To know historical, economic
and political structural causes of
underdevelopment.
• Socio-transforming vision of the • To have a Christian vision of the
Social Doctrine.
social problems and ways of
intervention.
• Sufficient knowledge of the
language.
• Being able to communicate well
in the mission.
[104] Christian and Salesian values
NEED
• To know the Catholic faith well.
• To know what it means to be a
missionary.
• Introduction to prayer.
• To develop a Personal Life
Project.
CONTENTS
OBJECTIVES
• Who is and how to communicate
with Jesus Christ.
• Elements of ecclesiology.
• Knowledge of the Bible.
• The Eucharist and
Reconciliation.
• To form Catholic identity in the
volunteer.
• Formation of the conscience
and Christian morality.
• Elements of missiology and
missionary spirituality.
• Ecclesial Doc: AG, EN, RM, EG.
• Pedagogy of the initial
proclamation.
• To acquire missionary criteria.
• To form missionary spirit.
• Ways to develop a relationship
with God.
• Models of meditation.
• How the breviary is used.
• What is a Personal Life Project.
• To teach the volunteer how
to pray with the religious
community.
• To encourage the development
of his/her vocational way.
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NEED
• To know the Salesian Charism.
CONTENTS
OBJECTIVES
• Knowledge of the life of Don
Bosco and some elements of the
history of the Congregation.
• The Salesian Oratory.
• The Salesian family and its
groups.
• Salesian Youth Spirituality.
• To know more about who the
Salesians are, their history and
charism.
These are some of the contents, skills and competencies that
can be addressed in the formation process before the volunteer
is assigned to a mission. It should be taken into account whether
a young person comes from a process of Salesian formation, such
as from the Salesian Youth Movement. In such cases, formation
can be reduced to a shorter version.
In some Provinces, particularly for those who have not had a
sufficient period of prior contact with the Salesian community,
a psychological evaluation is carried out.
[105]
b. Formation during volunteering
It is advisable that during the volunteering experience there is
a time when volunteers can reflect on the mission and what is
happening in their lives. These moments of internalisation are
important.
Towards the middle of this period it is appropriate to organise a
retreat, which helps reflection and internalisation where volunteers
develop their life plan, taking into account everything they have
experienced so far. It is recommended to carry out an analysis of
the experience from which a strategic plan can be created that
will help them to improve.
It is also recommended that the volunteer or group of volunteers
hold meetings with local people who can help them understand the
reality of where they are living (culture, society, economy, religious
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life, ecclesial life, young people’s experiences). It is recommended
to also have regular meetings with the Rector of the community
or whoever is entrusted as the contact person for the volunteers
to know how to communicate information, criteria, operation of
the work, sharing and evaluating the experience, etc.
The use of self-formation brochures that help volunteers to meet
the objectives previously proposed may be helpful.
When possible, the volunteer should participate daily in the
Eucharist so that daily, he/she is shaped by the Word of God and
the giving to Christ.
It is recommended that the volunteer be motivated to read topics
covering the Salesian way (life of Don Bosco, Preventive System,
other Salesian materials), topics of culture and history of the
place, and that he/she may practice Lectio Divina as part of his/
her ongoing formation.
[106]
c. Formation after volunteering
When the participants in the survey were asked about what the
most difficult stage of the volunteer experience was, we received
the following answers:
Before the volunteer experience:
During the volunteer experience:
After the volunteer experience:
12.6%
34.2%
53.2%
This indicates that for the volunteers the most critical stage of all
their experience is the return to their place of origin. Therefore,
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Accompanying means
“to share bread with
someone.” It’s about
sharing with another or
with others the purpose
of reaching a goal or
archieving something
together
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A PROCESS IN THE YOUTH MINISTRY
a formative strategy is needed for this stage of re-adaptation and
re-integration. The return to an anonymous normality, where their
social recognition and the stimuli for self-esteem are not so strong;
having left rewarding social relations, the return to a rhythm of
life where everyday problems may seem banal compared to the
intense experiences already lived.
All this can destabilise them and even lead to feelings of depression.
This destabilisation is where the person re-invents him/herself,
it is when the person can make decisions to creatively re-insert
themselves, with the baggage of lived experience, into social and
ecclesial life.
Some contents that can be taken into account in a post-experience
formation are: vocational and professional discernment, the Social
Doctrine of the Church with a view of a greater social and political
commitment in society; the vocational proposals of the Salesian
family, particularly the Salesian cooperators. The province should
foresee the possibility of continuing to offer former volunteers other
valid and demanding local opportunities for social volunteering.
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[107]
OPERATIVE CRITERIA AND STANDARDS
• Give priority and promote the SMV among the young people of our
Salesian presences, particularly among the animators.
• Make specific schedules for the SMV candidates coming from non-
Salesian presences.
• Provide formation programmes for both personal formation
(psychological, social, human relations, interculturality, etc.), and
for pedagogical, theological-pastoral and Salesian formation.
• Immediate formation for the national SMV cannot be less than 100
hours and 145 hours for the international SMV.
• In the immediate formation, a time for personal reading must be
allotted, as well as research on the environment where the volunteer
will be placed.
• Before international volunteering, volunteer experiences or short-term
missions (occasional activities, or one to three-week experiences)
must be proposed.
• Pay attention to the study of the languages of the places where
volunteering will take place.
• For international volunteers, competent professional formation in
some of the most required areas of the mission fronts must be planned.
• In the immediate formation, organise at least one spiritual retreat
and a carefully prepared missionary assignment.
• Undertake the discernment and selection of the volunteers who will
be sent on mission, particularly abroad, especially considering their
psychological, personal and spiritual profile.
• Where possible, conduct a psychological evaluation with professionals.
• During the volunteering period, at least two intense moments of
spiritual exercises, formation and community living are expected
during the year.
• During the volunteering period, volunteers must receive the formation
of the cultural, social, economic, religious, ecclesial, and youth
situation of the region by competent local people.
• On the volunteer’s return, organise as soon as possible some days
of meeting to share experiences and evaluate them, incorporating
psychological and spiritual support to assist with re-adapting to the
new situation and planning for the future.
• The province volunteer coordinator addresses the three stages of
the formation and accompaniment of volunteering: before, during
and after, paying particular attention to the return.
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5 Accompaniment in SMV
[108] As suggested by the Synod on the Youth:
Accompaniment for the sake of valid, stable and well-founded
choices, is therefore a service that is widely needed. Being
present, supporting and accompanying the journey towards
authentic choices is one way for the Church to exercise her
maternal function, giving birth to the freedom of the children
of God10.
The verb to accompany comes from the Latin term “cumpaniare” means
“to share bread with someone”. It is about sharing with another or with
others the purpose of reaching a goal or achieving something together.
Accompaniment is the encounter between two people who, sharing
similar values, seek to integrate them into their own life history. This
encounter makes them grow as people and as educators who identify
themselves with the Salesian way of doing and feeling11.
5.1. THE MEANING OF ACCOMPANIMENT
[109] Accompaniment of the SMV is the process through which support,
orientation, guidance and follow-up of the SMV is offered throughout
the entire experience, from the beginning (selection, discernment,
formation) to the return and integration into the community of reference
(place of origin or new community) their life plan continues. Therefore,
it is not an isolated and occasional activity, but a constitutive aspect in
the whole process. It is progressive, gradual and continuous, and looks
at the maturation of the volunteer in view of his/her personal growth,
10 Synod of Bishops of XV Ordinary General Assembly, 91. They are of enormous wealth and illuminating
for our reflection, also 95 and 99.
11 Cf. Pinella J., Seminary: Acompañamiento en el Voluntariado Plataformas Sociales (Madrid 2011).
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vocational maturation, ecclesial belonging and his/her active participation
in society. Consequently, it is an aspect that must always be present in
the life and process of every SMV.
It is close accompaniment that guides the person in every moment, from
his/her personal situation to clarify, discern and steer their life project,
in constant relationship with the formation process. In this situation,
the one who accompanies is the person who can empathise with the
volunteer and facilitate a clear vision of him/herself. The guide should
be broadminded and able to help the volunteer to look at the possible
horizons for decision-making that the volunteer discovers and embarks
upon one step at a time. It is essential to respond in a personalised way
to the needs that are emerging throughout the experience.
In relation to faith, it is a mutual service in which the one who accompanies
(the EPC, the group, the SDB or lay person) walks together with the
accompanied to enrich each other in an exchange of values and living
experiences of faith.
The accompaniment to the SMV is conceived with three different stages:
the preparation, discernment and sending (before); the actual experience
of volunteering (during); and return, integration into the community of
origin or reference (after). And at three levels, environment, group and
personal.12
5.2. BEFORE
[110] It is an accompaniment with clear objectives and an explicit framework. Its
main purpose is discernment. It is the exercise of the option of missionary
service as a result of a process of vocational maturation and of mature
and operative faith and charity. It is a time for explicit and immediate
12 FRSYM, Chapter V, 1.2. When Salesian Youth Ministry talks about accompanying people, different levels are
distinguished, from a task assumed by the Educative and Pastoral Community. That is to say, it is understood
as a task in which several people intervene at different levels, all of them contributing in the process of growth
and maturation of the person who participates in an appropriate environment, in peer training processes in
the space of a group of members and followed by an adult that favours and guarantees personalised attention.
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preparation, a time for verification of the underlying motivations and a
space to shed light on any concerns and to consolidate options in view
of the decisions to be made.
[111]
a. An accompanying Environment
Above all, accompaniment is offered by creating an educational
environment. The volunteer feels at home, is in a climate of mutual
help, circulation of ideas and affections, receives educational
proposals that encourage him/her to make choices and assume
commitment. The Salesian environment is characterised by
animation through structures and organisational stages; for
their educational, open, fraternal relations, respect and interest
for people (Salesian assistance); for the permanent qualitative
formation at various spiritual, Christian, Salesian levels, through
formative itineraries that, in addition to allowing them to live for
the young, help them to grow with them.
The Salesian community welcomes and integrates in its life and
action the people who are willing to volunteer in order to prepare
them for their integration in the future context of mission. The
candidates experience in it, and assume from it, the values of
pedagogy and Salesian spirituality.
[112]
b. Group accompaniment
The group is a pedagogical and educational context; through it, it
is possible to accompany people, attentive to the pace and variety
within a single journey and in response to the interests of the
people. Participation in a group helps young people to find their
own identity more easily, and to recognise and accept the diversity
of others. It is almost an obligatory step to mature an experience
of community and the Church. One may also think of creating a
group of “pre-volunteering.”
[113]
c. Personal accompaniment
This level deals with accompanying the volunteers in their
Christian growth and in their more personal choices. It is a “one-
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to-one” process, respecting of the volunteer’s individuality. It is
characterised by personalised dialogue and a close educative
relationship. The dialogue-interview has a particular value and
function. The dialogue restores pastoral attitudes. Salesian action
awakens in the young an active and critical collaboration in the
educational path, according to his/her possibilities, options and
personal experiences. It strengthens the desire for dialogue and
discernment; stimulates the internalisation of everyday experiences
in order to decipher their messages; encourages differentiation and
positive criticism; stimulates reconciliation with oneself and the
recovery of inner calm; encourages the consolidation of personal
and Christian maturity. The timing of these options and these
experiences are not the same in everyone, and even the situations
and decisions that young people encounter are not the same.
Accompaniment develops an educative and pastoral service in
relation to each individual, valuing their personal experiences, and
makes life the central theme of educative and spiritual dialogue.
5.3. DURING
Accompaniment is carried out during the volunteer service experience
and has the objective of helping to integrate several aspects.
[114] a. An accompanying Environment
This accompaniment goes through several stages.
• The stage focused on the emotional and psychological
dimensions that produces a change of life in their time and
rhythms, a new living space where one lives with others and
shares life in common spaces and perhaps at a distance
from family or friends, new relationships with new people in
the Educative and Pastoral Community, the SDB community
and the beneficiaries of the volunteering mission. There is
a latent desire to return home and leave the experience at
any time, aggravated by crises in relationships.
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A PROCESS IN THE YOUTH MINISTRY
• There is the stage of cultural and/or religious shock in
which one’s own identity is questioned, and requires a great
exercise of adapting and overcoming emotional stress and
homesickness, and to incorporate the local dynamics in
all dimensions in order to settle in to the new lifestyle and
cultural and religious expressions.
• There is the stage of inculturation in which the volunteer
begins to feel comfortable with the culture, understands it
and internalises aspects of it.
• There is the stage of integration. This is usually a moment
of consolidation of the experience in which there is a
propensity for security and autonomy, giving the impression
that accompaniment is no longer needed. The desire to
return home completely disappears.
Not all people live these four stages in the same way, with the same
intensity or duration. But at the beginning it is better to focus on more
practical aspects such as physical health (housing, food ...), psychological
health, i.e., their moods: satisfaction or dissatisfaction, their inculturation
and closeness to the people with whom they intend to work, difficulties
encountered in this task, relationships with colleagues and mission
partners and the SDB community; how he/she manages to carry out
tasks; the experience of his/her faith or expression of religious convictions
and vocational maturity.
The Salesian community that welcomes, and in a special way the Rector,
in person or via his delegate, plays an important role in this process of
accompaniment.
[115]
b. Group accompaniment
The permanent relationship with the group they belong to as well as
group accompaniment help volunteers to maintain their vocational
origin and to grow in their sense of belonging.
The mutual support between the volunteers themselves is
fundamental. Communication, daily sharing of the experience
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as a whole and the personal experience are an incentive to grow
and internalise the experience. The group meeting can be held
at local community level, as well as at provincial level, together
with volunteers involved in other communities.
The volunteer also maintains a frequent relationship with the group
that sent him/her, whether it is the Salesian community or the
volunteer organisation to which the volunteer belongs, the SYM,
where he/she began his/her formation process.
[116]
c. Personal Accompaniment
The Salesian Community that welcomes the volunteers guarantees
their personal accompaniment, appointing a competent Salesian,
often the Rector. or lay person for this purpose during their volunteer
experience. This accompaniment will be systematic, progressive,
steady and frequent. It can become spiritual, consolidating faith
as life in Christ and as an important sense of existence. It helps
to discern the personal vocation of each one in the Church and
in the world, and to grow constantly in the spiritual life right up
to holiness.
• The Rector of the community that sends or receives a
volunteer, establishes a close and paternal relationship, as
he is the first manager and animator of those who form his
community. This is why the volunteer establishes a filial and
trusting relationship with the one who acts as Don Bosco in
the community.
• The Provincial volunteering team accompanies the
volunteers and, in particular, this is the task of the Provincial
Delegate for Missionary Animation, as the link between
communities and volunteers. The team and the provincial
delegate accompany the volunteers by visiting them and
caring about their trouble-free integration in the host
community. Regular emails can be a great help. Whoever
performs this ministry of accompanying at the provincial
level must possess various qualities: personal stability,
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A PROCESS IN THE YOUTH MINISTRY
empathy, communication skills, ability to maintain a
professional distance, and should have lived the experience
of having been accompanied.
• The community of origin also has a role in the
accompaniment: some have an former volunteer, who acts
as a “mentor” who accompanies the new ones. In addition,
some organisations ask for a monthly report in which, in
addition to chronicling the activities and the reality in which
they live, volunteers also share their innermost thoughts
and feelings of the experience. On one hand, this record
helps the volunteer to internalise their experience and, on
the other, their testimony is very helpful to the young people
and members of the community of origin.
• As the end of the experience approaches, it is appropriate to
prepare the volunteer and the community in such a way as
to avoid emotional or relationship crises. The reactions can
be varied: satisfaction, lament or regret, relief and even fear
of change and of what to do on their return. Sometimes, it is
difficult to separate oneself from a project that, after all the
dedicated effort, begins to bear fruit or is in danger because
there is no one to take over. It is necessary to prepare the return,
giving equal importance to the departure and to the welcome at
home. It is necessary to plan it in the volunteer’s new community,
so that the convictions, the learning, the changes experienced,
the existential relocation are calmly assimilated.
5.4. AFTER
[117] As we have seen from the surveys, the accompaniment at the return is
the most delicate stage to which the Province that sent, and now receives
the volunteer back, must pay attention. It is a time of re-adaptation
and elaboration of the life project. The return must ensure that the
experience lived “during” the volunteering has continuity in the choices
and convictions, where the acquired learning is applied and updated in
the new circumstances.
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It is recommended that a process of reintegration into the community
of origin is provided, in which, even with psychological help, a composed
growth is ensured. In this process, spiritual and pastoral support is
necessary too. Attention must also be given to economic support, helping
them resume their work activities13.
[118]
a. An accompanying Environment
It will be fundamental to accompany the volunteers in the process of
reintegration into their community, group or association of origin,
and to help them take part in activities which they had deferred
such as housing, studies, vocational discernment, profession,
systematic apostolate, in such a way that there is no interruption
in the vocational process, but a new step in the journey.
[119]
b. Group accompaniment
It will also be a good idea to establish some form of contact with
the community, friends, group, but above all with the companion
of the previous “during” stage, to continue a healthy relationship,
nourish the experience from a distance, and not forget what
was lived. Likewise, it will be pertinent to look for opportunities
where the volunteer can share his/her experience and testimony
to other young people and candidates for volunteering in his/her
community as well as at the provincial level. This is a chance
to reintegrate the volunteers into their group of origin or into
another appropriate group within the Salesian family (Salesians
cooperators, past pupils), to continue their ongoing formation
and systematic accompaniment. The person responsible for
provincial volunteering can organise regular activities with the
former volunteers, including giving it an institutional form.
13 The GC 24 clearly insisted on this aspect: That the local community, upon the return of the volunteers, “ac-
company them in the acquisition of a just psychological-affective balance, through a fraternal welcome in the
family, ecclesial and social environment; take into account the economic aspect, helping them to enter the
world of work and favouring those commitments that are in tune with their choice of life “(124). “I helped
them in a critical rereading of their experience and to a re-projection of their life in the light of the novelties
they find in themselves and in the new environment that receives them” (125).
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A PROCESS IN THE YOUTH MINISTRY
[120]
c. Personal accompaniment
It is very important to identify and contact beforehand the
companion who will accompany the volunteer during this “after”
time, and clearly establish the times and rhythms for a systematic,
progressive, steady and permanent accompaniment.
As soon as the experience is completed, the Provincial team or the
supervisor for provincial volunteering will offer training and follow-
up with psychological help to assist the social reintegration. It is
advisable to organise further meetings between former volunteers.
This accompaniment must facilitate a discernment in one’s life
project: “a vigorous and meaningful apostolic proposal that is lived
together and a proposal of spirituality rooted in prayer and in the
sacramental life. In this way, there are all the necessary ingredients
so that the Church can offer young people who wish it a profound
experience of vocational discernment”14.
14 Synod of Bishops of XV Ordinary General Assembly, 161. Cf. 7, 69. 70, 104.
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[121]
OPERATIONAL CRITERIA AND STANDARDS
• Each province should designate a Salesian responsible for Provincial
Volunteering, who coordinates, possibly with a provincial team, the
accompaniment of the volunteers of those who are sent and of those
received.
• The local Salesian community tracks the volunteers who provide a
service in the centre or house, taking care of their formation, making
them participate in the life of the community and guiding them in the
exercise of their responsibilities.
• During the experience, arrange at least a six-monthly meeting over
several days with all the SMVs who are in the province (spiritual
exercises, programmes of communitarian life, formation), organised
by the provincial volunteering team.
• During volunteering at least once a month the Rector or the local person
in charge of volunteering has a informal conversation with the volunteer
to accompany his/her experience.
• During the experience, when there is a community of volunteers at the
local level, they should meet periodically to schedule, evaluate, train, pray
together and relax. A weekly community lectio divina is recommended.
• During the mission, the volunteers will prepare a monthly report of their
activities and experiences, and to share it with their community of origin.
• The PDMA of the community of origin of volunteering maintains a friendly
communication with the volunteers in mission and with the Provincial
responsible for the host community.
• Upon return, make a spiritual and psychological evaluation meeting
and accompaniment of the volunteer as soon as possible.
• Promote the inclusion, as far as possible, of the volunteer into the
groups of the Salesian family, particularly the Association of Salesian
Cooperators.
• On the return of volunteers, the local community will accompany them in
the acquisition of a proper psychological and affective balance, through
a fraternal welcome in the family, ecclesial and social environment and
taking into account the economic aspect, helping them to become part
of the world of work (GC 24, 124).
• On the return of volunteers, the PDMA encourages periodic meetings
between former volunteers and other young people and adults to promote
volunteering; the PDMA helps former volunteers to make a critical reading
of their experience and a re-planning of their lives (GC 24, 125).
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A PROCESS IN THE YOUTH MINISTRY
Accompaniment is the
encounter between two
related people, who,
sharing similar values, try
to integrate them into their
own life story
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V VORGANISATION
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[122] In order to guide the organisation of Salesian Missionary Volunteering,
there are some suggestions for animation and governance that demand
an organic plan of intervention for the Provincial or Inter-Provincial Youth
Ministry and Missionary Animation. Some pointers that can help establish
the organisation are described below1.
1. The sending communities (local and provincial).
2. The host communities (local and provincial).
3. SMV and NGOs.
4. Inter-provincial and global animation.
1 The Community that sends
[123] The Salesian communities that send (local or provincial), promote,
discern, form and accompany young people eager to experience the
missionary volunteering through their life and activity. The community of
origin is called to extend the generosity of the gift of self, the missionary
apostolate, values, Salesian pedagogy and spirituality. Each community
can send or receive volunteers.
1.1. THE LOCAL COMMUNITY LEVEL
[124] The local Salesian community and the EPC are in primary positions of
authority for the Salesian mission in the territory and, therefore, also
for the Salesian missionary volunteering that takes place in it. For this
reason, local communities must:
• assume and promote the province’s volunteering project.
Local communities must know the diversity of the volunteering
experience, the identity, the priorities and the methodology of the
voluntary service of the province and integrate it into their SEPP;
1 Cf. Voluntary Service in the Salesian Mission, 54–61.
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ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE OF SMV
• promote locally, according to the recipients, different forms of
volunteering, giving particular emphasis to the SMV;
• accompany in their community the group of “pre-volunteers”
of the SMV, helping them to clarify their motivations and their
maturation process;
• send candidates for volunteering to the provincial, national or
regional meetings of the SMV;
• maintain contact with young volunteers during their mission,
asking them to share their experience;
• cordially accompany the volunteers who return to their community
after their service, offering a fraternal welcome, helping them to
integrate into the community, in the Church and in society;
• ensure there is a celebration to mark when some young people
from their community go on mission.
[125]
a. The Rector
He has the primary responsibility for SMV in the local community,
the one who creates awareness and culture of missionary animation
among the brothers and the EPC. He encourages those responsible
for Youth Ministry and Missionary Animation to promote SMV in
their community and to involve the Salesian community and the
EPC in knowing, accompanying and welcoming the volunteers.
[126]
b. The local missionary animator, contact person of SMV
He is the main point of contact for the SMV: it could be a Salesian
or a lay person of the EPC suitable for the accompaniment of the
candidates. It is important that there is a contact person for the SMV,
who can be the same Rector. The contact person is attentive to:
• promoteing volunteering in the Salesian work and in the
surrounding region. In communion with other educational
agencies, he is a spokesperson for this dimension in all youth
environments and encourages young people to take an interest
in volunteering;
• favouring the community experience of volunteers and candidates,
including them into the Salesian family environment, offering
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them the opportunity of a gradual and greater commitment in the
community and in the province and offering spaces and times of
participation and co-responsibility within the EPC;
• forming the group of “pre-volunteers” or candidates for the SMV
and accompanies them systematically, in a group and individual
way. The group of candidates can sometimes be formed by young
people from various Salesian houses geographically nearby;
• establishing contact with the families of the young candidates,
accompanying them and involving them in the choices of the
young people;
• assisting the candidates to develop their personal life project
and guide them vocationally, indicating to them the diversity of
vocations in the Salesian family;
• working in communion with the PDMA, the volunteer contact person
and his team, maintaining smooth communication and coordinated
action in the selection and formation of the candidates;
• fraternally accompanying the volunteers who return from their
mission, helping them to their integration back into ordinary life,
assimilating them into the life and pastoral animation, particularly
in the SMV and the missionary animation, being able to assume
the formation and the accompaniment of the new volunteers.
1.2. THE PROVINCIAL LEVEL
[127]
a. The Provincial
The Provincial, with his Provincial Council, is the first person in charge
of Youth Ministry and Missionary Animation in the Province and,
therefore of Salesian missionary volunteering. It is the responsibility
of the Provincial, as head of the provincial community, to send the
missionary volunteers to their missionary service and to accept those
sent from their provinces. He and his Council assume responsibility to:
• help the confreres and the local communities to recognise the
importance of volunteering for the Salesian mission2;
2 GC 24, 126.
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ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE OF SMV
• implement an SMV provincial project according to the Provincial
SEPP;
• approve the directory of the SMV;
• indicate a person responsible for provincial missionary
volunteering and the SMV;
• ensure the necessary financial support;
• accompany the discernment of sending international volunteers;
• contact other provincials who welcome volunteers from his
province;
• ensure the calm integration and local inclusion on the volunteer’s
return from his/her mission;
• celebrate the act of missionary sending of the SMV, in the
context of the Eucharist.
[128]
b. The Provincial Project of SMV
The project, that must be in full harmony with the OPP and Provincial
SEPP, must also:
• express clearly the objectives pursued by the SMV in the
province;
• identify those responsible for the SMV and their functions: Provincials,
Rectors, local contact persons, PDMA, his SMV provincial team;
• clarify the volunteer’s profile and the criteria for selection
discernment;
• indicate training itineraries, their content, methodologies,
competencies and experiences;
• supervise the accompaniment before, during and after the
mission;
• implement the directory that indicates practical elements for
carrying out the volunteer service: legal, economic, logistical
aspects, code of conduct.
[129]
c. The PDMA
This figure at the head of the SMV is fundamental. He or She is
the contact person placed by the Provincial for the animation of
provincial volunteering and particularly the SMV. He/She must form
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an SMV animation team, normally integrated by former volunteers.
The head of such a team forms part of the Provincial Youth Ministry
team. It interacts with the other Provincial commissions and
delegations: such as associations (SYM), schools, universities,
youth centres, social services, parishes, Salesian family, social
communication, economer (PPDO), and Salesian NGOs. Some of
his/her tasks are:
[130]
To promote the SMV
• animates the Salesians, the EPCs and the various commissions
within the Youth Ministry Team, especially the SYM, motivating the
importance of SMV and raising awareness about its identity and
specificity;
• maintains close cooperation with the missionary groups of the
province. -contacts the volunteers and candidates of the Salesian
communities and the NGOs of the province dedicated to the
promotion of volunteering, accompanying them in their process
of discernment and formation;
• maintains relations of communication and collaboration with
Salesian NGOs, civil and ecclesial volunteer organisations;
• in collaboration with the Delegation of Social Communication,
takes care of the dissemination of the volunteer project. A website
is recommended for the SMV of the Province.
[131]
To take care of the formation and accompaniment of the SMV
• implements a provincial training plan for volunteering;
• accompanies the process of selection and preparation of
volunteers;
• organises brief volunteering experiences (retreats, Easter
missions, etc.) as preparation for a more committed service;
• accompanies the volunteers when they start their service; keeps
in touch with them and visits them whenever possible;
• upon the volunteer’s return from mission, accompanies the delicate
stage of reintegration of the former volunteer into the community of
origin, the elaboration of his/her life project and vocation, and their
new incorporation into the ecclesial and social life;
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ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE OF SMV
• supervises, according to the SMV directory, the various legal,
logistical and economic aspects of the mission.
[132]
To coordinate volunteering at the provincial level
• encourages and coordinates the local contacts for volunteering in
general and for SMV in particular;
• is the provincial and unit reference point for volunteers and
voluntary organisations;
• visits the communities where volunteers are prepared (pre-
volunteers);
• maintains communication with the destinations of volunteers
and with local partners, especially with the ones responsible for
volunteering in the destination province;
• is part of and meets periodically the Youth Ministry Team of the
province, and maintains contacts with the Missionary Animation,
Social Communication and Salesian family;
• prepares the Provincial celebration of the missionary expedition;
• reports regularly to the Provincial and his Council on SMV activities;
• takes care of the updated archive of the candidates, the volunteers
and former volunteers, as well as the evaluations of experiences, so
as to guarantee continuity and provide appropriate documentary
evidence;
• favours the incorporation of former volunteers in the teams of
animation of SMV, supporting the experiences of volunteering,
collaborating in the formation of new volunteers and spreading
the culture of volunteering;
• requests the volunteers for reports of their experience.
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[133]
OPERATIVE CRITERIA AND STANDARDS
• Pre-volunteer missionaries groups within the various groups in the
local communities must be promoted.
• The local missionary supervisor must be named, as local point of
reference for volunteers in general and for SMV.
• The families of SMV candidates must be involved.
• The local reference person for missionary animation must take care
of the formation and accompaniment of the volunteers before, during
and after the mission.
• The Provincial adapts and implements a provincial plan and a directory
for the SMV.
• The Provincial is the one who concludes the discernment and receives
or sends the SMV to other provinces or countries.
• A PDMA, who possesses sufficient time to develop its mission of
organisation, formation, accompaniment and sending of the SMV, must
be designated as provincial responsible for volunteering and the SMV.
• The PDMA forms part of the Youth Ministry Team.
• At the provincial, national, regional and global levels, a database must be
established, collecting the data of candidates for volunteering, former
volunteers and places where they are requested.
2 The Community that
welcomes
[134] As for the structure and organisation of volunteering in the communities
that welcome the volunteers, they should follow the same structure of
the sending communities.
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ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE OF SMV
The religious community and the EPC must be prepared for the reception
of the volunteers, and the Salesian confreres must be duly informed
and consulted.
The Salesian community accompanies the volunteers who offer a service
to the house, taking care of their formation, making them participate in
the life of the community and guiding them in the service of educational
and apostolic responsibilities3.
It is important to inform clearly, undersign and offer the necessary guarantees
regarding the code of conduct of educators, which governs the insertion of
the volunteer in the educational community, and the clear rules regarding
the “Safety and Protection of minors” according to the rules of each country.
2.1. THE RECTOR AS
THE FIRST LOCAL GUIDE
[135] The Rector must be aware that the volunteer is a valuable collaborator
for the mission, but he is also a recipient of it. Therefore, he:
• directly accompanies the missionary experience of the volunteer,
with the possible help of a local contact person;
• presents the volunteer to the EPC and integrates him/her into their
house and its dynamics;
• has a personal dialogue with the volunteer at least once a month;
• supervises the physical, psychological and spiritual health of the
young missionary.
2.2. THE PROVINCIAL
[136] The Provincial with his Council and in dialogue with the PDMA studies
the volunteer candidates who request to be accepted by the province.
3 Cf. GC 24, 124.
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After having examined their CV and profile, they will decide whether or
not it is appropriate to welcome them and the type of service they can
perform in the province4.
2.3. THE PROVINCIAL PROJECT OF THE SMV
[137] As indicated above, the host community should have a volunteering
project similar to the one that governs local and international SMV. The
project must:
• express clearly the objectives pursued by the SMV in the province;
• identify those responsible for the SMV and their functions:
the Provincial, the Rector, the local contacts, the provincial
responsible, the provincial team;
• clarify the profile of the volunteer and the criteria for a
discernment in the selection;
• indicate training itineraries, contents, methodologies,
competences and experiences;
• guarantee the accompaniment before, during and after the
mission;
• draft a directory that indicates practical elements for the
realisation of the volunteer service: legal, economic, logistical
aspects, code of conduct.
2.4. THE PDMA WITH HIS SMV TEAM
[138] The PDMA in a province that receives volunteers is a figure of great
importance because he/she is the point of reference for volunteers.
4 The practice of some Province in which a particular house or a Salesian has to go on his own voluntarily to his
work, in a disconnected way with the provincial project of volunteering, without the consent of the provincial
and the PDMA must be surpassed. Sometimes there are complaints about the profile and activities of some
expatriate volunteers who operate in the provinces. The root of the problem lies in the host province itself,
which has not been concerned with making sufficient communication, a prior clarification on the identity of
the Salesian mission, on the criteria necessary for such a mission; There has been a lack of attentive discern-
ment for the acceptance of volunteers, especially those who come for a prolonged period. The role and clarity
of the PROVINCIAL in this process is fundamental.
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ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE OF SMV
He/She must, therefore, possess the personal qualities that inspire
confidence and:
• maintain a fluid communication with the community that sends
the volunteer;
• maintain a fraternal accompaniment and friendship with the
volunteers;
• organise at least two intense annual meetings of 3 to 6 days, such
as spiritual exercises, formation, experiences of community life,
sharing of experiences;
• visit them regularly in their communities, seeking to solve possible
irregularities or difficulties;
• maintain personal contact with them through email and social
media;
• prepare a written evaluation of the experience of the volunteers
and present it to the Provincial Council and to the community of
origin;
• supervise the legal aspects of the volunteers’ stay in the country
(updated documents);
• is attentive and available to solve the health problems of the
volunteers.
2.5. PROFILE OF THE RECEIVING COMMUNITY
[139] While it is evident that a Salesian community must essentially be simple,
generous, cheerful, welcoming, capable of inspiring the Salesian spirit
(Const. 58), formative and capable of accompanying, it is appropriate to
emphasise some aspects to bear in mind:
• a coherent evangelical life, which radiates the absoluteness of God;
• testimony of fraternity in words and works;
• passionate apostolic passion, especially for the poorest among
young people;
• serious, systematic and simple life of prayer centred on the Word,
the Eucharist and Marian devotion;
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• fundamental human values ​of the Family Spirit;
• sense of spiritual fatherliness;
• ability to welcome, converse and listen to volunteers;
• sensitivity to the needs of the other person (material,
psychological, emotional, spiritual needs);
• community that educates to faith and to the inclusion of a
missionary environment;
• diplomatic and educational firmness;
• interest in the life and activities of the volunteer;
• openness and ability to involve volunteers in some decisions,
avoiding forms of authoritarianism;
• sense of appreciation, which avoids any attempt to exploit the
other person.
[140]
OPERATIVE CRITERIA AND STANDARDS
• The Provincial with his Council has primary responsibility in accepting
volunteers from abroad in general and from SMV to his province.
• A PDMA must be named as provincial supervisor of the SMV for contacts
prior to the arrival of volunteers from abroad, to analyse if their profile
corresponds to the needs of the mission.
• The PDMA helps the volunteers to integrate themselves in their
community, gives them the necessary information and communications,
as well as the material to better understand the local culture and
situation. He oversees their accompaniment.
• The PDMA organises spiritual exercises, formative meetings and retreats
for the SMV at the provincial or national level.
• The communities that host volunteers must be prepared with the
qualities and virtues of our family spirit.
• The local Rector, as the main local guide of the volunteers, has a
conversation with the volunteers at least once a month; he looks after
their physical, psychological and spiritual health.
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ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE OF SMV
3 Salesian Missionary
Volunteering and NGOs
[141] Among the various forms of organisation of Salesian voluntary service,
there are Salesian NGOs that promote Salesian voluntary service in
the social, international and missionary context. They are non-profit
associations, recognised in civil society, that promote social justice,
equality, development and the safeguarding of human rights, without
institutional links with governments and their policies; they work with
professionalism in the field and try, through timely projects, to respond
to the urgencies of society with opportunity and effectiveness5.
NGOs operating in the Salesian mission have developed and played an
important role in the promotion, formation and sending of volunteers.
As experiences and approaches of NGOs and volunteering are different and
complex, a generic standardisation is not possible. This implies finding for
each case the most appropriate voice with the Provincial Salesian Youth
Ministry and Missionary Animation, which respects the identity and mission
of the NGO, on the one hand, and on the other the charismatic identity,
structure and organisation of the Salesian Youth Ministry.
3.1. TYPES OF NGOS
[142] Classifications are useful to better understand how to convey volunteering,
youth ministry, missionary animation and the NGOs. We can distinguish
at least three types of NGOs.
1. Institutionally Salesian NGOs. These belong fully to the
Salesian Congregation and are institutionally integrated in
it. The statutes, identity, policies and decisions are fully in
accordance with SEPP and OPP and are animated and governed
5 Voluntary Service in the Salesian Mission, 60.
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by the province or by a group of Salesian Provinces. The
Provincial, or group of Provincials and their delegates, are
ultimately responsible for its organisation and policies.
2. Salesian-inspired NGOs. These NGOs are inspired by the figure
and mission of Don Bosco and seek to support the Salesian
mission. These organisations are autonomous from the
jurisdiction of the provinces. On a case by case basis, according
to their statutes, they will be more or less institutionally linked
to the Province or group of Salesian Provinces. They usually
have their executive direction and assemblies formed by lay
people. The presence of Salesians in these NGOs is usually
related to charismatic counselling and accompaniment, but
not always with decisions and governance.
3. NGOs that collaborate with the Salesian mission. These
organisations are very different from each other and, depending
on the case, find points of collaboration with the Salesian
mission: in education, professional formation, marginalisation,
migration, personal development in general and evangelisation.
These organisations are completely autonomous with respect
to the Salesian organisation.
3.2. OPPORTUNITIES OF NGOS
IN THE SALESIAN MISSION
[143] The NGOs have characteristics that enrich, complement and strengthen
the Salesian mission. They:
• present the civic and secular face of Salesian values ​of education
and the promotion of the neediest among young people in
civil society, governing bodies and diverse manifestations of
cooperation;
• give greater visibility to the “Work of Don Bosco” in the world;
• collect public and private funds to support and develop the
Salesian mission;
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ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE OF SMV
• disseminate the culture of solidarity, globalisation and interculturalism;
promote human rights, social justice and development in areas and
forums in which the Salesians of Don Bosco are not usually present;
• enable many lay people to get involved in the Salesian mission,
especially in the areas of promoting human values;
• offer greater professionalism and efficiency to the educational
and human values interventions, ensuring better planning and a
more orderly, efficient and transparent administration;
• are a great help for the Provincial Planning and Development Office
offering technical planning and professional advice;
• promote national and international volunteering, both at the
Provincial level and outside of it, convening volunteers, training
them, accompanying them and sending them to frontier posts of
the Salesian mission;
[144] Together with the rich contribution of NGOs to the Salesian mission,
sometimes there are also some difficulties to be avoided.
• Sometimes, by introducing organisational and professional
criteria, which are valid in themselves, they can gradually override
the Salesian charismatic and pastoral criteria in the planning and
implementation of the projects6.
• In relation to volunteering, if there is not proper communication
with the Salesian Province, there is a risk that parallel structures
and criteria are created which deviate from youth ministry in
relation to volunteering. In this way, there is a risk of sending
volunteers who are not very well versed with the Salesian
mission and with insufficient reintegration into the Salesian
reality of origin after the returning from the volunteer experience.
6 The NGO in the Salesian mission is a valuable and effective instrument, but it cannot be an end in itself. The
Salesian NGO is part of the Salesian mission and therefore of the Church; and as Pope Francis insisted, the
Church is not an NGO (Meeting with young Argentines in Brazil July 28, 2013): The Church is the work of God,
it is the family of God (Catechesis May 29, 2013). He/She must confess Jesus Christ: if he/she does not, he/she
will end up being a welfare NGO (Address to the Cardinals March 14, 2013); The Christians are full-time, you
are not a Christian in time determined as in an NGO (Catechesis May 15, 2013). You cannot reduce Christian
activity to do social good, taking as an example St. Teresa of Calcutta (Homily in Saint Marta May 28, 2013).
There is the “functionalist” danger of the Church that reduces it to the structure of an NGO. (Meeting with
CELAM in Brazil July 28, 2013).
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• At times, there may be some ambivalence or terminological
confusion about what is meant by volunteering. It can be mistaken
for cooperation, civil service, internship, cultural exchange, justice/
solidarity tourism, a training experience, or other forms of sending
young people and professionals to the Salesian mission.
3.3. NGOS AND THE SMV
[145]It is essential that every NGO develops a volunteering programme. Such
volunteering can have different characteristics, depending on its cultural
context, recipients and identity of the NGO, which does not necessarily
identify with the SMV. Such programmes enjoy a clear autonomy vis-à-vis
the Salesian Youth Ministry. The volunteers identified and trained can be
sent by the NGO where they find it most appropriate, including Salesian
presences in common agreement with the Provinces that receive them.
It will depend on the type and identity of the volunteer organisation,
identifying what are the methods and the selection and training criteria
for this submission. Even though there are different types of “volunteers”
and a great degree of autonomy, a fruitful collaboration between the NGOs
and the Salesian Youth Ministry in the country of origin and the host country
through the PDMA responsible for Provincial volunteering is desirable.
[146] The Salesian missionary volunteer is sent by a home Province, usually to
a Salesian presence, in agreement with another province or groups of
provinces. There is a community that sends and another that receives, a
Provincial-level Council that discerns the sending and another that discerns
the welcome. The selection process and training can be perfectly carried out
by one of the Salesian NGOs that operate in the province, but should follow
the criteria for selection, suitability and training according to the provincial
guidelines and options of both the YM and the MA for the SMV Provincial
Project. The implementation and accompaniment are coordinated by the
PDMA, who collaborates in the process in discussion with the NGOs.
The sending of the SMV is officially carried out by the Provincial, or his delegate,
as a sign of the missionary spirit and communion among the Provinces.
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ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE OF SMV
The volunteer is a valuable
contributor to the mission,
but is also the recipient of
the mission
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On the other hand, the SMV prepared by an NGO will be fully integrated
in the volunteer project of the host Province, having the local PDMA and
the local Rectors as the main points of contact.
[147]
OPERATIVE CRITERIA AND STANDARDS
• Salesian NGOs are promoted as charismatic and solidary presence in
the civil context.
• Salesian NGOs and the PDMA work in a coordinated way on volunteering.
• Salesian NGOs seek, as far as possible, to include the SMV in their
volunteering proposals.
• When a Salesian NGO organises the SMV in its process, it should do
so in coordination with the PDMA, following the provincial criteria and
formation processes.
• The final discernment on the acceptance of the candidates for
volunteering, both for sending and receiving them, is up to the Provincial.
4 Some practical aspects
[148] Without claiming to deal with everything in these practical aspects such
as the legal, logistical and economic fields, it seems opportune to offer
at least some suggestions originating from diverse experiences.
Many of these aspects may be included in the directory for volunteering, which
may include the profile of the volunteers, their age, the length of their stay
and the ways in which volunteers were welcomed into Salesian communities.
4.1. LEGAL ASPECTS
[149] Some important aspects to keep in mind are:
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ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE OF SMV
• an agreement between the Province that receives the SMV and
the Province that sends. This agreement establishes the duties
and rights of the volunteer; it clearly indicates the activities and
functions he/she will carry out in the mission, the moments of
formation and rest, the contact people. Certain basic standards
of living in the mission are established there too;
• an agreement between the volunteer and the Province that sends
him/her, indicating their status as volunteer and assuming the
responsibilities and risks of such an option. Such an agreement
must be ratified legally under local law7;
• authorisation of parents, particularly considering the diversity of
legislation;
• a clearly explained, accepted and undersigned Code of Conduct.
In it the subject of the protection of the minors must appear;
respect and emotional maturity in relation to lay collaborators
and beneficiaries, criteria on the use of mission resources
(means of transport, etc.) must be included too; acceptable forms
of behaviour in the culture in which they are integrated and the
reasons for which, at the initiative of the receiving community, the
volunteer service could be concluded. In their formation process,
the volunteers must study the Code of Conduct of the Province
that sends them and of the one that hosts them;
• a Code of Conduct on the Protection of Minors must also be signed
according to the legislation of each country.
4.2. ECONOMIC AND LOGISTICAL ASPECTS
[150]
• An important principle is that the SMV is both collaborator and
recipient of the mission at the same time, who deserves attention
and material and spiritual care.
7 This can avoid unpleasant conflicts, such as possible labor demands, institutional responsibilities in case of
accident or health, etc.
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[151]
• Another important principle is that a fully subsidised8 volunteer
does not help to create dynamics of obligation, generosity,
sacrifice and participation. For this reason and depending on
the cases, the costs of volunteering will have to be shared
between the sending community, the receiving community and
the volunteer him/herself. Everyone should give their share
generously.
• Complete standardisation between the local SMV and external
volunteer is necessary. Both receive the same treatment and the
same maintenance contributions.
• The lifestyle of the missionary volunteer is marked by simplicity
and austerity, so that everything that is superfluous should be
avoided in the context where he/she finds him/herself, giving
a witness of communion of life with the people where the
volunteering is lived out.
• Health insurance is the responsibility of the sending community. It
is important to clarify how to implement it in case of need (identified
assistance places, methods, etc.), particularly in countries with
health problems.
• Documentation, visas, are the responsibility of the sending
community and/or the volunteer.
• The travel costs to the place where the service is offered is taken
on by the sending community and/or the volunteer.
• Internal transportation costs due to the mission’s service are
expected to be covered by the host community.
8 When the volunteering ends or becomes impracticable because of the cut of government subsidies, it must
be analyzed if it was really a true volunteer. Government aid for volunteers is a great opportunity to empower
them, but they cannot create excessive dependence, nor should they kill their spirit, which springs from the
spontaneous, free and generous civil organisation to respond in solidarity to the needs of others with their
own media. A dynamic of self-sustainability of volunteering implies the logical capacity of commitment and
motivation of the local Christian and civil communities, which assume and send volunteers, making volun-
teering much more communal, ecclesial and co-responsible. It is not just a “I want to go” but a community
that sends and represents and is accountable for the mission.
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ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE OF SMV
• The host community assumes the expenses of food and lodging,
ordinary health care and other normal ordinary expenses, as if the
volunteer was an additional Salesian in the community9.
• On regular monetary expenses, the local SMV directory will
set the reasonable amount according to the reality of the local
communities.
• In the event that a missionary volunteer receives any money for a
social project or service on the project, or a grant, he/she must put
it into the common cash fund of the volunteers for the expenses
of the volunteer community or be handed over to the Salesian
Rector of the host community. If necessary, this practice should
be legally implemented.
• Volunteers not coming from the SMV or young people performing
the civil service, or cultural exchange may, if they wish, pool their
support grants, entering into the dynamic of the SMV.
• Formation costs such as retreats, community experiences,
training of SMV are the responsibility of the host community. This
particularly concerns the national or regional SMV meetings.
• The accommodation of the volunteers in the Salesian community
cannot be improvised and will vary depending on the profile of the
volunteer (man, woman, single, married couple, with or without
children), number of volunteers, vocational process of the
volunteer, etc. The Provincial and the local Rector and his council
shall offer the necessary conditions.
• Regarding accommodation, consider the sensitive and prudent
reception of volunteers, carefully taking into account the identity
of the religious community and public witness.
9 It is fair and as a form of real participation of the local community that welcomes, that they assume some
expenses of the volunteers. Such generosity and delicacy is an expression that SMV are expected, loved and
accepted as lay co-responsible for the mission. It is regrettable that certain “fees” that volunteers must pay
to serve the community. It is true that there may be communities living in extreme poverty and indigence.
In these particular cases the sending community can provide, by mutual agreement, an economic aid to the
community that receives in anticipation of the maintenance of volunteers. But this should not become an
economic opportunism, which instrumentalises the reception of volunteers by economic interests, distorting
the value and meaning of the presence of lay collaborators in the mission.
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[152]
OPERATIVE CRITERIA AND STANDARDS
• All SMV, local and foreign, must be treated with the same care and
attention.
• The sending Province, in agreement with the volunteer, assumes travel
expenses, medical insurance and documentation.
• The host community assumes the expenses of lodging, food and ordinary
subsidies.
• The host community takes care of the formation of their SMV, sending
them to the previously scheduled national or provincial meetings.
• The SMV money for some projects or services will be entered into the
volunteers’ common fund or delivered to the Rector of the Salesian
community.
• The SMV is offered decent accommodation that respects their dignity
and their living is marked by sensitivity, according to one’s personal
characteristics.
• Volunteers from the SMV are received with a paternal welcome and
a balanced prudence into the Salesian community, with the form of
accommodation proper to the Religious Life.
• An agreement between the Province that receives and the Province
that sends the volunteer is made, clarifying the functions and services
that the volunteer will carry out, as well as their corresponding rights
and duties.
• At the local level, a legal agreement is completed between the sending
Province and the volunteer that is sent.
• An SMV Code of Conduct is provided for volunteers. Overseas volunteers
must receive it before coming to the country or province of destination.
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ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE OF SMV
5 Animation of SMV at inter-
provincial and world level
5.1. REGIONAL OR NATIONAL ANIMATION
[153] Provincial leaders of the SMV of a nation or a group of provinces should
seek to agree a common plan, unifying criteria and collaborating in the
formation of SMV, sharing information, subsidies, itineraries, experiences
and good practices.
It is very useful to create a database of former volunteers and volunteers on
mission, to highlight the supply and demand of places where volunteering
can be carried out, indicating the competencies and profiles required.
At regional or national level, missionary congresses, inter-provincial
meetings on volunteering, an exchange of volunteers in the same region
and even a mutual sending of them, can be organised.
This activity can be coordinated by a Salesian designated by the
conference of the Provinces or Region, or the Regional Coordinator of
Missionary Animation (RCMA).
5.2. WORLD LEVEL ANIMATION
[154] The promotion and animation of volunteering at the level of the
Congregation is a shared responsibility between the Department for
Youth Ministry and the Department for the Missions. The two departments
make available their respective named contact person.
The missions department designates an administrator for the
coordination and animation of Salesian Missionary Volunteering. Such
an administrator will be at the service of the various provincial voluntary
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The promotion and animation
of volunteering at the Level of
the Congregation is a shared
responsibility between the
Departament for Youth Ministry and
the Departament for Missions
144
ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE OF SMV
organisations that identify themselves in the Salesian Missionary
Volunteer Service and want to collaborate in carrying out their mission.
[155] The administrator has the following tasks:
• follows the development of the Salesian voluntary service, in its
various forms, especially SMV;
• helps the Provinces to have a natural relationship between
volunteering, youth ministry and missionary animation;
• helps the Provinces to know and apply the present document on
the SMV and other orientations of the Congregation in relation to
volunteering in the Salesian mission;
• encourages reflection and study on volunteering in the Provinces;
• coordinates the various realities and organisations in the
Provinces and Regions and the Salesian NGOs that promote
volunteering;
• takes special care of the quality of volunteer formation proposals;
• encourages the creation of a database of the Congregation,
collecting data about both volunteers and volunteer placements;
• promotes volunteering with particular attention to other countries;
• encourages each Province to have its own local SMV organisation;
• encourages the Regions or group of Provinces to coordinate
initiatives in favour of volunteering (formation, sending, exchange);
• seeks economic support for the promotion of volunteering,
through appropriate projects;
• gives visibility and interacts with Social Communication, to
highlight the good practices in volunteering, its challenges, its
achievements, its consequences in the different contexts, in order
to promote it;
• serves as a “bridge” between the Provinces that prepare volunteers
and the provinces prepared to host them;
• interacts with other ecclesial and civil voluntary organisations in
the international arena.
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CONCLUSION
[156] This handbook on ‘Identity and Orientation of Salesian Missionary
Volunteering’ offers a reading of the current situation of volunteering,
including concepts, experiences, methodologies, to better understand
and implement SMV in the Salesian mission. It provides the reader with
various pastoral, theological and Salesian reflections that motivate its
importance and beauty for our faith and charism. Pedagogically, it presents
processes, formation and accompaniment paths for volunteering, as well
as practical forms of organisation.
[157] However, this document is more than an educational-pastoral resource;
it aims to be an encouragement to salesian youth holiness. It represents
an invitation for our young people to carry out an intense Christian life
in the generous giving of themselves. It is a proposal that provokes and
challenges us to live the high degree of Christian life.
How many young people in our Salesian spirituality confirm that it is
possible and worthwhile to give our lives for others? Blessed Zeferino
Namuncurá chose the phrase “I want to study to be useful to my people.” A
simple but challenging slogan for a world marked by individualism and the
search for personal success. Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, committed to
the social problems of his time, urged us to “live and not just ‘get along’.”
The testimony of a young volunteer in Africa, Salesian cooperator, Sean
Devereux, who died in Somalia while carrying out his humanitarian work, is
also a strong one. The young Salesian past pupil, Akash Bashir, prevented
a suicide bomber from entering a crowded Catholic Church in Lahore,
Pakistan, sacrificing his life to avoid a large-scale carnage in the place
of worship, literally shows what it means to sacrifice one’s life for others.
146
In addition, thousands of young people in our social settings, oratories,
youth centres, parishes, missions, schools, generously and cheerfully
offer their lives in the service of other young people.
[158] Pope Francis tells us “Life is worth living; but to ‘live it well’ it is necessary
to ‘set their life aflame’ in service, in proclaiming, and in going forth. This
is the joy of the Announcement of the Gospel”1.
How many young people find in missionary volunteer work a way of
serving the ‘least’ of our brothers and sisters (cf. Mt 25:40), promoting
human dignity and witnessing to the joy of love and of being Christians!
These ecclesial experiences educate and train young people not only for
professional success, but also for developing and fostering their God-
given gifts in order to better serve others. These praiseworthy forms
of temporary missionary service are a fruitful beginning, and, through
vocational discernment, they can help you to decide to make a complete
gift of yourselves as missionaries2.
May the present document be an instrument to rekindle the missionary
spirit and the apostolic zeal of the young people of our youth ministry,
in our homes and to ourselves as educators and pastors.
1 Francis, Homily in Santa Marta (Vatican 10/05/2016).
2 Francis, Message of Holy Father Francis for World Mission Day 2018 (Vatican 19/05/2018).
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PUBLICATIONS OF THE
DEPARTAMENT FOR THE
MISSIONS
(By title and year of publication)
1 Il Missionario (1980).
2 Salesian Africa (1986).
3 Pastoral Amazónica. Semana de
Estudos Missionários - Campo
Grande (1986)
4 Evangelization in India. Study
Sessions for the Salesian Family
on Evangelization in Tribal Areas
of India - Shillong (1987).
5 Africa Salesiana. Visita d’Insieme
- Lusaka (1988).
6 Spiritualità Missionaria Salesiana
I. La Concezione Missionaria di
Don Bosco (1988).
7 Spiritualità Missionaria Salesiana
II. L’Educazione Cristiana e
Missionaria di Don Bosco (1988).
8 Salesian Missionary Spirituality
III. Prayer and the Salesian
Missionary (1988).
9 Espiritualidad Misionera
Salesiana IV. The Ideal of Mission
(1988).
10 Spiritualité Missionnaire
Salésienne V. The Missionary
Project of the Salesians of Don
Bosco (1988).
11 Pastorale Salesiana in Contesto
Islamico (1989).
12 Animazione Missionaria
Salesiana II. Secondo Incontro di
Studi per DIAM - Madrid (1989).
13 Pastoral Mapuche. Encuentro
DIAM Salesiano - Junin de los
Andes (1989).
14 The Far East. Cultures, Religions,
and Evangelization - Hua Hin
(1989).
15 Lettura Missionaria di “Educare
i Giovani alla Fede” CG XXIII.
Incontro di Procuratori e DIAM
dell’Europa - Roma (1991).
16 Animación Misionera Salesiana.
Primer Encuentro de DIAM de
America Latina - Lima (1991).
17 Missionary Animation. First
Meeting of the PDMA for Asia and
Australia- Bangalore (1992).
18 Spiritualité Missionnaire
Salésienne, Les Jeunes Africains
en Quête de Leur Identité.
Séminaire d’Animation - Yaounde
(1992).
19 Evangelización y Cultura en el
Contexto de Pastoral Amazónica.
Seminario de Animación-
Cumbayá (1993).
20 Evangelización y Cultura en el
Contexto de Pastoral Andina.
Seminario de Animación-
Cumbayá (1994).
21 Evangelización y Cultura en el
Contexto de Pastoral Mapuche.
Seminario de Animación -Ruca
Choroi (1993).
148
22 Evangelization and Interreligious
Dialogue. Missionary Animation
Seminar - Batulao (1994).
23 Evangelization and Interreligious
Dialogue. Missionary Animation
Seminar - Hyderabad (1994).
24 Evangelización y Cultura
en el Contexto de Pastoral
Mesoamericana. Seminario de
Animación - Mexico (1994).
25 Il Volontariato e la Missione
Salesiana (1995) – ENG, ESP,
FRA, ITA, POR.
26 Educare alla Dimensione
Missionaria (1995) – ENG, ESP,
FRA, ITA, POR.
27 Presenze dei Salesiani in Africa
(pubblicazione annuale dal 1986
to 1996).
28 Church - Communion and
Mutual Missionary Relationship.
Missionary Animation Seminar -
Addis Abeba (1997).
29 Incontro Europeo Delegati
Ispettoriale per l’Animazione
Missionaria [DIAM] - Roma (1997).
30 National Missionary Animation
Meeting for PDMA - Mumbai
(1997).
31 Manual of the Provincial Delegate
for Missionary Animation (1998).
32 Uniqueness of Salvation in Jesus
Christ and Need of Primary
Evangelization. Animation and
Missionary Formation Seminar
SDB-FMA East Asia Oceania -
Hua Hin (1998).
33 Missionary Praxis and Primary
Evangelization. Animation and
Missionary Formation Seminar
SDB-FMA - Calcutta (1999).
34 Seminário de Pastoral em
Contexto Afro-Americano.
Seminario de Animação e
Formação Missionária-Belo
Horizonte (1999).
35 G. Ballin, I Fioretti d’un
Missionario. Paraguay Cuore
d’America (1999).
36 Le Projet-Afrique face au Défi
de la Première Evangélisation
et de la Phase de Consolidation.
Séminaire d’Animation et de
Formation Missionnaire-Yaounde
- Mbealmayo (1999).
37 La Primera Evangelización
en Diálogo Intercultural.
Experiencias y Formación
de Catequistas. Seminario
de Animación y Formación
Misionera en el Contexto Pastoral
Andino y Mesoamericana -
Cumbayá (2000).
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38 Seminário Sobre a Práxis
Missionaria na Região
Amazônica. Seminário de
Animação e Formação
Missionária - Manaus (2000).
39 Missionari nel Paese del Sol
Levante Discepoli di Don Cimatti.
Figure che Parlano ancora
(2000).
40 P. Baldisserotto, Rio de Agua
Viva. Cartas de Pe. A. Scolaro
Para a Missão e Testemunho
(2000).
41 Sprazzi di Vita. Figure che
Parlano Ancora (2000).
42 Project Africa between
the Challenges of First
Evangelization and the Phase of
Consolidation. Animation and
Missionary Formation Seminar
SDB-FMA – Nairobi (2001).
43 Seminario di Animazione e
Formazione Missionaria. SDB-
FMA in Contesto Islamico - Roma
(2001).
44 Presenza Salesiana SDB-FMA in
Contesto Ortodosso. Seminario
di Animazione e Formazione
Missionaria - Roma (2002).
45 Salesian Family Missionary
Seminar. Mission Animation
Notes 1 – Port Moresby (2005).
46 East Asia and the Challenges
of Mission Ad Gentes. Salesian
Family Missionary Seminar.
Mission Animation Notes 2 - Hua
Hin (2005).
47 Planning and Development
Office. Proceedings of the
Seminar – Roma (2005).
48 Les Défis de la Mission Ad
Gentes en Afrique. Séminaire
de Missiologie de la Famille
Salésienne. Animation Notes 3 -
Kinshasa (2006).
49 Mission Ad Gentes Today in
Africa. Challenges to Mission Ad
Gentes in the English Speaking
Provinces of Africa in the Light
of the Apostolic Exhortation
Ecclesia in Africa. Mission
Animation Notes 4 - Nairobi
(2006).
50 Pueblos Indígenas y
Evangelización. V Encuentro
de Misioneras y Misioneros
Salesianos en Contextos
Pluriculturales – Cumbayá (2006).
51 Progetto Africa [1980-2005]
(2006) – ENG, ESP, ITA, FRA,
POR.
52 Impegno Salesiano nel Mondo
Islamico. Dossier (2008).
53 Il Volontariato nella Missione
Salesiana (2008) – ENG, ESP,
FRA, ITA, POR.
54 Mantén Viva tu Llama Misionera.
II Seminario Americano de
Animación Misionera SDB-FMA -
Cumbayá (2012).
55 Oficinas de Planificación
y Desarrollo al Servicio del
Carisma Salesiano en la
Provincia - Hyderabad (2012) –
ENG, ESP, FRA, POR.
56 Procuras Misioneras
Inspectoriales al Servicio del
Carisma Salesiano - Bonn (2012)
– ENG, ESP.
150
57 Giornate di Studio sulla Missione
Salesiana in Situazione di
Frontiera e Primo Annuncio
Cristiano in Europa Oggi - Praga
(2013) - ENG, ITA.
58 Giornate di Studio sulla Presenza
Salesiana tra I Musulmani (2013) –
ENG, FRA, ITA.
59 Study Days on the Salesian
Mission and the Initial
Proclamation of Christ in
Oceania in the Context of
Traditional Religions and
Cultures and Cultures in the
Process of Secularization – Port
Moresby (2013).
60 Study Days Study Days on The
Salesian Mission and the Initial
Proclamation of Christ in the
Three-fold Context of East Asia –
Sampran (2013).
61 Study Days Study Days on The
Salesian Mission and the Initial
Proclamation of Christ in the
Three-fold Context of South Asia
– Kolkata (2013).
62 La Formazione Missionaria dei
Salesiani di Don Bosco (2014) –
ENG, ESP, FRA, ITA, POL, POR.
63 Journées d’Étude sur la Mission
Salésienne et la Première
Annonce du Christ en Afrique &
Madagascar - Addis Abeba (2014)
– FRA, ENG, POR.
64 Jornadas de Estudio del Primer
Anuncio al Discipulado Misionero
en América y el Caribe (2014).
65 Missionari Salesiani in Europa.
Atti degli Incontri dei Missionari
per il Progetto Europa (2016) -
ENG, ESP, ITA.
66 Atti delle Giornate di Studio sul
Primo Annuncio in Citta (2015) .
67 Il Primo Annuncio Oggi (2017) –
ENG, ESP, FRA, ITA, POR.
68 Amazonía Salesiana. El Sínodo
nos interpela. Contribuciones
de los Salesianos de Don Bosco
para el Sínodo y para una
renovada presencia entre la
juventud amazónica (Torino, Elle
Di Ci, 2019) - ENG, ESP, POR.
69 Il Volontariato nella Missione
Salesiana. Identità e
Orientamenti del Volontariato
Missionario Salesiano (Dicastero
per la Pastorale Giovanile –
Dicastero per le Missioni) (2019)
– ENG, ESP, FRA, ITA, POR.
70 Animazione Missionaria
Salesiana. Manuale del Delegato
Inspettoriale – DIAM – (2019) –
ENG, ESP, FRA, ITA, POR.
151