Don Bosco goes digital! A fresh resource for youth ministers

Today, on the feast of St John Bosco, the Salesians re-launch CatholicYouthWork.com a resource for everyone who is involved in working with young people in the Church. It offers a place for resources, jobs, a forum to share ideas and find support as well as somewhere to keep up to date with the latest youth ministry news and events. Dermott Donnelly, Chair of CYMFed, the Catholic Youth Ministry Federation in England and Wales, said: “this is a fantastic resource that will help strengthen and support the Church’s important work with young people”.

“We know there are lots of people out there doing great work with young people”, Chris Knowles, Editor of the site said, “they’re all doing fantastic things, having amazing ideas and putting exciting plans into action, but the problem is that we’re too often disconnected from one another. This site is a place we can all come together to share ideas, resources and good practice, and was designed specifically to facilitate this. So we invite you to come onto the site, join the forum and start to share ideas and resources!”

The Salesians have invested in the site since taking it on last summer.

Provincial Fr Martin Coyle thought it was important to start this new project because “it’s a great way to use new technology to help those who minister to young people, there really isn’t anything else like this out there. This year we celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of St John Bosco, so while he wouldn’t recognise a website if he saw one, he did love new technology like the railways and the modern printing presses of his time, things that made it easier to bring people together and share the Gospel. This project is particularly appropriate way for us to continue to live out his mission today”

The site is a resource that is offered completely free of charge, anyone can register to get involved in the forum and receive our resource and ideas emails. The site is strengthened by more people getting involved because as they get involved in sharing resources and ideas, we can better resource and support people in their work. Last year we attracted between 5 and 11 thousand page views each month, and we hope this will grow as we keep the site up to date with new resources and ideas for people who work with the young in the Church.

See: http://catholicyouthwork.com/ - new site live now.

The bicentenary of the birth of St John Bosco is on 16 August 2015, a series of special events are planned. For more information see: www.salesians.org.uk/bi-centenary/2015-celebrating-the-bi-centenary-of-don-boscos-birth.html