The Salesian Youth Movement is a movement of communion of different groups and youth associations integrated in the Salesian Youth Ministry, sharing the educational and evangelical proposal inspired by the spirit and style of Saint John Bosco and Saint Mary Domenica Mazzarello.
The Salesian Youth Movement (SYM) was officially born in 1988, the centenary of the death of Saint John Bosco. Its origins lie in the Movimento dei Oratori Giovanile Salesiano (MOGS), when in Italy, in the 1970s, young people from Salesian oratories promoted the first meetings to share the experience of living the Salesian charism. As participation in these meetings begins to include not only young people from the oratories but also from the various environments of the Salesians, the name is changed to SYM. In the following decades the movement grew and became part of all Salesian presences around the world.
SYM, as an educational movement offered to all young people to make them subjects and protagonists of their human and Christian growth, with a missionary impulse, a active participation in the surrounding environment and in the local Church, offers a spirituality based on in five cores:
The presence of young people with a Salesian charism at the biggest event for youth and for the Church at world level demonstrates that Don Bosco’s young people make their voices heard, actively participate in society and are dedicated to ecclesial commitments.
The organized presence of the SYM in WYD has gained tradition over the last editions of this Church landmark, on the one hand, through the promotion of organized participation as a movement; on the other hand, with the reception of these groups in Salesian houses in which there is a truly family atmosphere; and also, with the organization of the SYM Forum and the SYM Party, as places for dialogue and reflection, the first, and entertainment and celebration, the second.
It is also an opportunity to give visibility to the worldwide dimension of the Salesian Youth Movement.
