ORIGIN OF THE CENTRE
Don Bosco Youth Centre-Upanga is a centre that offers many activities for the young people of Dar es salaam City. As per the name DON BOSCO which means Father Bosco in Italian, takes it’s name from the founder of the society of Salesians of Don Bosco “John Bosco” an Italian Priest who dedicated his whole life working for the young people in the city of Turin later in 1859 together with his collaborators founded an international society so as to carry out his mission outside his home town and country. Now the society is spread out to the whole world embracing the spirit of its founder.
Don Bosco Youth Centre – Upanga is part of the chain of Don Bosco Institutions present in Tanzania and elsewhere in East Africa and the world at large. It is Catholic, non-profit institution that works for young people irrespective of their race, religion, or culture. The Centre which is run by the Catholic Priests and Brothers and lay collaborators characterized by their outstanding youth charisma was opened in October, 1982. For a long time this center has been associated with empowerment programmes for Youth in Dar es Salaam and in particular for our Upanga neighbourhood. It is located at the heart of the city of Dar es Salaam . Everyday a big number of young people especially secondary school students visit our campus for assistance in their studies. We avail our hall as a place to study and this place is busy from 7.30am to 6.30pm. Students come from many schools looking for a quiet place to study in their free time. Here they find a welcoming and a youth friendly environment. We also have sports in the afternoon; our compound is small so we have a small football ground and two basketball courts (one in door and one outdoor). We start with the junior teams in the afternoon at 3pm then the ladies’ team and men’s senior team (which plays for 1st division league) starts from 7pm to around 8.30pm. That is the activity that goes latest on out timetable. We also have HIV/AIDS awareness progaram.
Any youth regardless of their race or religious affiliation is welcome to the center to join any of the above mentioned activities without any charges/fee. Don Bosco as an institution takes care of youth especially the poor and abandoned. Don Bosco himself used to say “it is enough for me to know you are young for me to love you ver much”. Thus we can’t introduce any charges because we are afraid the poor ones will not get a place to study or to play. We have dreams to increase activities in the center regardless of the limited space but we are limited in resources.
The problem we face as a center is that we do not have any ‘stable source of income’ so we rely on well-wishers and benefactors for most of our financial assistance. Right now we are faced with the problem of completing our toilets and land scaping the front part of our compund which is like a “basin” in a sense that there is no outlet for rainy water, so people cannot get in or out of the compund without removing their shoes when there is a heavy rain. These two together with improving our compound wall that is short and allows thieves to come in at night is what is our preoccupation right now. In fact concerning the wall the part that is adjacent to the football ground is old and worn out and this part and another part near the toilets is almost falling down. We also have other smaller problems like buying balls and other sports facilities and paying for electricity bills because those who play at night have to use the sport lights which consume a lot of electricity. We also have a shortage of tables that the students use for studying but we make the students share the few tables we have until we can buy new ones and some of the ones we have, have started getting broken due to continuous use by students. We are also dreaming of buying some academic books for reference and establish a min-library for reference for those who can’t afford to buy books.
For more than 26 years, the Don Bosco Youth centre – Upanga has remained a place for all the young people who want to spend their time in studies, sports and leisure where by youth spend their time exchanging ideas, experience and visions.
The centre organizes and provides a number of programmes designed to help young people to reform their life styles towards healthier and positive characters. Our young people have many talents, unless they are given opportunity to expose it, their talents and gifts will remain dormant and die before they are realized. Don Bosco Youth centre has for all this time promoted and transformed the life of many young people among them being famous musicians, actors and sports men and women.
Apart from that Don Bosco Youth centre has given the young people opportunity to exercise and experience leadership and learn more on organizing skills. The seminars being organized to various youth centre and zones are of good help to many young people who aspire to become leaders of our society in the near future. This is a good sign of having good future leaders in sports, education, politics and religion etc.
Sponsorship and charity works done by the centre give the young people an opportunity to understand the value of life and help to strengthen a sense of humor as well as giving hope to those in despair.
Activities
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Young people, like other age groups, need to engage themselves in physical activities in order to keep fit, have fun and leisure and to have encounter with others. Sports activities bring together a big number of players, funs and supporters all around the world, for different purpose.
In Don Bosco Youth Centre, sports are mostly used for physical and mental growth, entertainment and leisure. Apart from these, sports help the youth to refrain from unhealthy companies and related behaviors and mobilize them towards positive living through guidance and good examples. Sports occasions in the center are highly utilized for education and awareness programs, with the purpose of imparting knowledge and life skills.
Throughout the year, different sports activities are organized atDonBoscoYouthCenter, with various themes and messages. These activities which are mostly organized in rather competing way include football, netball, basketball, volleyball and Karate.
Football and netball have emerged to be more popular than others due their influence among the sports society. Another factor contributing to this is availability of equipment and facilities. Basketball has turned out to be the game which many young people like but don’t have the facilities for it, hence Don Bosco Youth Centre play a great role in promoting this game (basketball) among the youth of Dar es salaam.
One of the significant features at Don Bosco Youth Center is promotion of children and girls in sports especially in basketball. Basketball is one of the most poplar games in the centre whereby the teams are divided into four categories, SAVIO TEAM and DON BOSCO LIONESS (the senior teams for both boys and girls respectively), MAGONE the under 18th team for boys, DON RUA the under 15 team for boys and DON BOSCO KIDS for under 10 years team.
Don Bosco Youth Center provides all the sports facilities in the Centre for free, these include; grounds for training, balls, nets, whistles etc. The Center has also hired the youth coaches for training sessions and gives first aid when injuries occur.
As described earlier Don Bosco Youth Centre is a non profit institution, hence does not have specific source of income but rather depend mostly on well wishers for its funds. The institution mainly depends on local donors and few foreign donors; also when the hall is free it is hired out to raise some funds for the centre. Generally there are more than 200 young people who come to the youth centre everyday both for personal studies and sports.
THE AIMS OF ORGANIZING SPORTS ACTIVITIES
To give youth an opportunity to have fun and enjoyment in a friendly and loving environment.
To raise new talents which might be useful for the youth in future and now.
To integrate education and social awareness programs with sports for the purpose of educating and guiding the youth towards positive living.
To mobilize the youth for other social services.
To help the youth in avoiding negative behaviors by keeping them busy, and away from bad company.
TYPE OF ACTIVITIES
a) Daily Sports Activities
b) Annual Sports activities
c) Seminars on Youth Awareness and Skills building
d) Different Educational Youth Programmes
SPORTS AND CULTURE
In responding to the youth needs for physical activities which are engaged in for pleasure, but also using the same juncture to develop young people’s intellectual and moral aspects, Don Bosco Youth Centre organizes a number of tournaments, festivals and concerts. The following are some of the sports and cultural programmes that take place annually: Don Bosco Cup, Drama Festivals, Don Bosco Youth Fest; this is the biggest of all the events that take place in the centre. Apart from that every year the centre organizes a tournament for the young stars so as to promote their talents in sports. The theme for all the mentioned events usually addresses one of the social challenges facing the Youth.
EDUCATION
Every activity that takes place at Don Bosco Youth Centre is used for imparting knowledge and providing guidance in life. The centre offers seminars and workshops for the young people in different topics and groups, value meetings which is mainly for the young people from several schools and hostels surrounding the youth centre. Also the centre displays a number of articles and educative materials on notice boards to help young people get in touch with the current realities in the world.
SPECIAL PROGRAMMES
Apart form the activities that take place within the centre, Don Bosco Youth Centre has a number of outreach programmes, whereby young teachers who form part of the youth council go to schools, both primary and secondary to offer some educative programmes. One of this programmes is LIFE CHOICES PROGRAM. It is a programme aiming at helping young people and pupils to choose life rather than death or rather make good choices in life. It is a programme aimed at creating awareness on HIV and AIDS among young people and offer counseling to young people who have been infected and affected by HIV/AIDS related problems. Related to this we have Y4Y (Youth for Youth) who are peer educators and go to certain parishes in the city to offer life skills and faith lessons to their peers every Sunday. Together with that Don Bosco Youth Centre is collaborating with many other bodies that work with and for the young people in the city and in the country at large.