SPYS in Bratislava for Eurizon 2006

Last month, a group of Maltese youths from the Salesian Pastoral Youth Service (SPYS), joined over 100 youngsters from nine European countries, to take part in Eurizon 2006. The event was held at the Salesian Youth Centre in Mamateyova, Bratislava-Petrzalka. Now in its third year, Eurizon, which was known as Eurotreff for ten years, has become an annual gathering of youths from Salesian organisations across Europe.

The gathering was held under the patronage of Jan Figel, a member of the European Commission responsible for education, training, culture and multilingualism. This year the theme of the event was "Feel the Power of the sTeam", the sTeam representing the Salesian spirit within the team.

Morning prayers were followed by various interactive, artistic, crafts and sports workshops, cultural visits, outdoor activities as well as small group discussions, targeted at animators and young people. Participants also had the opportunity to choose what activities and workshops they wished to take part in.

DOMKA, the organisers, offered all participants a mixture of creativity, adventure and spirituality. This meant that youths coming from various countries with different cultural and social backgrounds, could blend together in true Salesian spirit to work together as a team.

With the theme of personal and community building, SPYS aims to promote Christian values with a holistic formation of young people in the spirit of St John Bosco. In its ten years of service to Maltese youths, the organisation has recognised the importance of its international sphere as part of this formation. It is an area which leads towards better understanding of one another. More information about SPYS may be found on www.spysmalta.org/spysint