Felices Los Niños Foundation - Don Bosco's Preventive System

About us > What we do > Don Bosco's Preventive System

Because Father Julio Cesar Grassi, Founder of Felices los Niños, has a Salesian education, the foundation's work is strongly influenced by St. John Bosco's Preventive Educational System. The Preventive System is immersed in educational and spiritual structures. It is entirely based on reason, religion and love. It does not appeal to demands but to the resources of intelligence, the heart and the desire for God every person has deeply inside him or herself.

Education to develop people's potential

The art of positive education

In order to understand the relationship between the work we do at Felices los Niños Foundation and the Preventive System it is important to note that St. John Bosco (1815-1888) worked in direct contact with young peasants who arrived in Torino, Italy in search of better life conditions. Far from their expectations, the great city faced them with unemployment or extremely low salaries, in addition to the social aspects attached to it: crime, neglect, hunger and loss of faith. Don Bosco instilled deep spiritual values of work and unity in this young population. At Felices los Niños we also work with a poor and neglected population that grows up in isolation, without any opportunities and outside any social containment system.

To educate positively it is necessary to bring educators and children/young people – the target of our endeavor - into the same life experience. We must follow their development in a responsible manner and with strong conviction. There must be a family-like environment of trust and communication.

The Pillars of Don Bosco's Preventive System:

Work and education to develop students' potential using motivation, appreciating knowledge and promoting responsibility.
The need to live in a family atmosphere where they feel protected, important, loved, where they may enjoy leisure and have the opportunity to play and have fun. It is kindness and proximity what constructs familiarity; the affection that is shown by means of understandable gestures that foster trust and build affection.
The encounter with God to discover their own dignity as Children of God and the very sense of their life.

The Preventive System seeks to make life consistent by opening it to values that attach sense to life. It is the combination that turns children into “Honest Citizens” and “Good Christians”. Human promotion and Christian salvation. Responsible citizens and committed Christians.