Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Port Moresby (Agenzia Fides) -Papua New Guinea where many children in have no access to school, the local Catholic community seeks to provide instruction for children of various ages to open the way to a better future.
In Papua New Guinea poverty and unemployment produces spreading juvenile delinquency, a source of concern for experts, civil authorities and religious leaders. People in Port Moresby, Lae, Mt Hagen, are fearful as gangs of youths known as 'raskols' rage through the streets.
In a bid to offer young people an opportunity to leave behind a life of crime and start a new life, missionaries opened schools, oratories and professional training schools. Besides education and technical training the missionaries teach moral values as a sound basis on which to build life. 70% of the schools in the PNG are run by Christians.
The missionary communities include the Salesian Fathers present in Papua New Guinea since 1980 with schools and training centres. To extend the mission of human and Christian instruction to reach more young people recently the Don Bosco Technical College in Port Moresby opened a Friends of Don Bosco group of benefactors who believe in the Don Bosco educational project. The school is now trying to involve former pupils and students and all people of good will to sustain its project to provide education for children excluded from the school system, to prepare them to be “good Christians, honest citizens and animators”.
The population of Papua New Guinea is 66% Christian (of these 22% are Catholic). (PA) (Agenzia Fides 23/7/2007 righe 26 parole 270)
