Don Bosco as social entrepreneur
|
When the first industrial revolution started in Piedmont, many young people were forced to migrate from the impoverished countryside to the industrialised capital of Turin in the hope to find work and build a better life. Often this proved to be false hope. The classic liberal ideology of low state intervention led to the systematic abuse of young people of the city who found a job in the workshops and factories. Those who could not find a job were condemned to vagrancy or joined street gangs. Both options often led them to a life in prison.
It is in this context where Don Bosco (1815 – 1888) found his mission and worked for the dignity of those young people living on the peripheries. Apart from giving many of them a home, his solutions included the development of quality education (preventive system), solidarity mechanisms (mutual aid societies), social negotiations (work contracts), and entrepreneurship (workshops). The ultimate aim was not just to render young people profitable for the economy, but as a method to find autonomy in life, becoming “good Christians and honest citizens”. In order to sustainably develop these projects Don Bosco spend his whole life, not just building the projects, but also fundraising for running the projects. Often he would do this through diversifying his incomes: gifts through charity, fundraising campaigns like lotteries and tombola’s, and income generating investments through the products produced by the workshops. As such he can be seen as a 19th century social entrepreneur. |
|
