Hajja Salesjana January February 2017

5 The National Federation of Past Pupils and Friends of Don Bosco organised the first part of an Erasmus+ EU funded project on Youth Inclusion: Education, Employment and Empowerment during a weekend seminar at the Salesian Oratory in Sliema. Young past pupils from Palermo and Milan in Italy, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Malta gathered together from Friday 11th – Sunday 13th November 2016 to build a strategic partnership and cooperate together to learn more about how to promote youth inclusion through education, employment, and empowerment by reaching out to the young poor amongst the poorest youth. The young people from five different European countries had the opportunity to share with each other their experiences of working with young people in need and especially those who are poor. They also shared how they are reaching out to these young people in need and how more services can be created by involving more young people. The young people discussed various forms of poverty that young people are suffering from in Europe. There is no doubt that the economic crisis has left its mark and youth in Europe were badly hit. The effects are still being felt with high unemployment, rising poverty rates and with a significant share of vulnerable youth achieving low attainment grades and/or dropping out of education or training. The wellness and wellbeing of young people has also been affected badly. Youth work and youth organisations cannot ignore this reality when reaching out and engaging young people. Informal and non formal education in youth work can be a proactive response to address the issues which are contributing to poverty, unemployment, low education attainment, deprived wellbeing and poor health. During their stay in Malta, all participants for this weekend seminar also joined the Salesian Family in Malta for the Encounter Round Table with Don Bosco which was held at the Salesian Theatre in Sliema. The project will now continue in every country in preparation for a secondmeeting that will be held at the end of February 2017. A national conference will also be organized where a structured dialogue will be held exploring the theme of youth poverty and how to address this situation. Youth Inclusion by Bryan Magro