You can rescue a desperate child

In the metropolitan city Manila in the Philippines, Salesians like Father Marciano “Rocky” Evangelista are making a transformative difference in the lives of homeless youth.

At Don Bosco Tuloy, street children receive shelter, warm meals, clothing, healthcare and opportunities to learn. The facility has grown into a 10-acre campus consisting of residences, educational programs, a community center, a chapel and a multitude of child development services. With ongoing support, traditional education and vocational training programs, children who otherwise may be lost are turning their lives around…and are becoming successful, productive members of society.

You can be part of this miracle

In the years since its founding in 1993, Don Bosco Tuloy has helped nearly 20,000 children discover their second chance. At the campus, more than 250 former street kids are currently thriving and another 700 youth are attending school and participating in sports and educational activities.

Unfortunately, the need is so much greater. In the Philippines today, nearly 1.8 million precious girls and boys are abandoned or neglected. Some of them are mere toddlers, left alone to survive on the streets amid the constant threat of exploitation, trafficking and abuse.

Please … will you help us help them? Thank you in advance for your kindness!

Your support makes a real difference for these children—children like Edmar, who was rescued by Fr. Rocky’s staff, and now succeeds in school, excels at ballet, and aspires to open a dance academy and wants to train other vulnerable youth in his art at no charge… just because he wants to “give back” to society.

In other words, your generosity ripples out and changes so many more lives than just one! And it’s not just in the Philippines; it’s in so many countries around the world that are plagued by poverty and lack of opportunity.

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News & Updates

South Africa: A Fresh Start—and Vision for a Brighter Future

He never intended to be a gang member, but when young Zuko found himself spending more time on the streets of Cape Town than at home, his fate seemed to be sealed.

Don Bosco’s Influence in Ethiopia

Werkeneh was just 11 years old when he first encountered an outreach worker from the Bosco Children Project. Having ventured from his impoverished rural village in search of better opportunities, the second-grade dropout instead had landed on the streets of Addis Ababa—where he struggled, alone and scared, to survive.

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An estimated 150 million children around the world have no place to call home and struggle to survive on the streets. Our missionaries provide a second chance to these often neglected and abandoned children by offering them shelter, food, medicine, assistance, education, training and more to help turn their lives around. Help us give them the opportunity to change their lives!

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Our missionaries are addressing the growing number of neglected and abandoned youth living on the streets by providing a second chance at a better life. An estimated 150 million youth have no place to call home. Help us give them opportunities to change their lives!

We hope and pray that you support our life-saving work. Your gifts will be used for this program and other similar Salesian programs around the globe that benefit poor and needy youth. Please join us to help make the world a better place.

South Africa: A Fresh Start—and Vision for a Brighter Future

He never intended to be a gang member, but when young Zuko found himself spending more time on the streets of Cape Town than at home, his fate seemed to be sealed.

Having lost his mother at a tender age—Zuko was just two—the streets became an escape from economic and familial hardship as the impressionable boy entered his formative years. Treated poorly by his stepmother, he sought validation from older youth he perceived as tough and mature. When Zuko turned 13, fascinated by the daily gang fights he witnessed, he decided it was time to prove himself and join them.

“Everyone was afraid of [the gangs],” Zuko, now 19, recalls—explaining that joining one conferred a level of respect among other street kids that he thought would benefit him. Instead, he found himself surrounded by violence that contradicted his gentle nature and forced him to beat, and sometimes even stab, other boys. The first time it happened, he says, “I saw everything in slow motion. I had blood on my hands and I prayed he wouldn’t die.

“If I could travel back in time, I’d change that part of my life,” he continues. “I can’t remember any good that came of it.”

Thanks to a Salesian-run program in Cape Town, he now serves as a leader and role model for other marginalized and vulnerable youth. “I dedicate myself to advising and helping young people, but also adults, to be more attentive to their children,” he explains. “We need the wisdom of adults not to lose hope, and to find answers to problems our youth face,” he says.

Zuko’s vision is vital to South Africa, where mass structural unemployment, high rates of interpersonal violence, and fractured families and communities limit opportunities for young people to achieve their full potential. Persistent poverty, inequality and a lack of educational opportunity make it even more difficult.

Since 2005, in partnership with South Africa’s Departments of Health and Education, the Salesian program has helped more than 200,000 girls and boys address these challenges through education, training and awareness activities.

“Youth need resources and support so they can develop the skills and knowledge they need to make sound decisions,” says Father Mark Hyde, director of Salesian Missions. “Programs like the one Zuko enrolled in help young men and women discover their strengths, tap into their resilience, and overcome the obstacles standing in their way as they work toward building better lives and better communities.”

For Zuko and the youth who benefit from his new wisdom and life skills, a better future has already arrived.

Don Bosco’s Influence in Ethiopia

Now, six years later, he has earned straight-As in his 10^th-grade class at the Don Bosco School in Mekanissa: an achievement he directly attributes to the opportunities first afforded him at the Bosco Children Project. In addition to housing, meals and counseling, the city’s only shelter for homeless youth offers basic education and literacy classes, which helped Werkeneh catch up on his studies and rejoin his peers in school.

“At first it was not easy for me to adjust to the environment,” the young man says, explaining that he was unaccustomed to a daily structured routine. “I felt almost like a fish out of water. But slowly I began to feel at home.”

The Bosco Children Project takes a three-step approach toward rehabilitating homeless youth. First, as they did with Werkeneh, staff members work to build trust with boys and girls while they are living on the streets. This includes offering them shelter, food, warm clothing, psychosocial support, and access to basic education and literacy classes.

When children are ready, and if they choose to, they may formally participate in step two of the program, which includes specialized skills training in auto mechanics, carpentry, culinary arts, metal-working, leather crafting and more. Third, once their training is complete, youth receive financial and career placement assistance as they work toward becoming independent.

While only in the second phase of the program, Werkeneh already has a bold vision for his own self-sufficient future. “My life, I owe it to Don Bosco,” he says. “Now I want to be useful to society. I have received a lot in my life, all free. I want to give back what I have received. My dream is to be a doctor.”