(Don Bosco Academy, Nalgonda) – Hyderabad, the fourth most populous city in India, is vast and extremely varied from a social and urban perspective: it hosts highly industrialized areas as well as immense rural zones where poverty and backwardness reign, making the living conditions of the inhabitants extremely harsh. In Nalgonda, the Salesian missionaries founded the “Don Bosco Academy” in 2008: a large educational institution that provides human and educational support to disadvantaged children and young people.
Nalgonda is a small town in the center of an agricultural district that has always been characterized by poverty and underdevelopment. It is now also being severely impacted by climate change: alternating periods of water scarcity and devastating floods prevent the communities from obtaining crops that can provide them with even minimal sustenance. These are poor, often illiterate farmers who have large families they are finding increasingly difficult to support in terms of food, education, and healthcare.
Through the Academy, the Sons of Don Bosco provide customized educational tools to the children of these farmers with the aim of breaking the centuries-old cycle of backwardness, poverty, and resignation. The local Salesians, to clearly describe the severity of the situation, have provided some illuminating data: “In our region, there are 90 million inhabitants, 40% of whom live in absolute poverty. About 70% of the population has only attended elementary school.”
In such a complicated context, isolation is not only cultural but also geographical: large distances and bad roads prevent many children and young people from regularly attending school, pushing them, along with the lack of family resources, to drop out of school and help their parents with agricultural work.
For this reason, the Salesians plan to purchase a school bus: they want to discourage school dropouts by enabling the children and young people of the district to regularly attend lessons at the Don Bosco Academy, which is already a second home for 350 students from kindergarten to high school. There, they find not only academic education but also a wide range of sports activities (football, volleyball, basketball, badminton, and cricket, India’s national sport), tutoring, and summer camps—a well-rounded education according to Don Bosco’s Preventive System.
The Salesians of Nalgonda are doing their best to extend the reach of their beneficial work. A benefactor has already generously financed the purchase of one school bus, but to ensure regular attendance for all, the local Salesian community has sought help from the Salesian Missionary Prosecutor “Missioni Don Bosco” in Turin.
Only with a second school bus will it be possible to cover a second route and thus reach children from other areas, who also deserve, like everyone else, to attend school, play sports, and dream of a better future.
For more information, visit the website: www.missionidonbosco.org
Source: ANS – “Agenzia iNfo Salesiana”