ASSOCIATION MAISONS DON BOSCO (AMDB)

AMDB is an association for the Salesian community of the Catholic Church in France.

Its goal is to promote educational values transmitted by catholic priest Don Bosco at the end of the 19th century to the Don Bosco Salesian congregations referred as « Preventive System ». On the ground AMDB association runs a schools network and a social care organisations network detailed in the following : 51 schools in France for a total of 30,000 students, – 6 schools in Belgium for a total of 5,500 students, – 1 school in Tunisia for 560 students, 1 school in Morocco for 1,600 students, – 20 social care associations – about 3,500 staff members. Schools are organised in three regions (North-East-West ; Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes ; Sud-Occitanie), each of these under the supervision of a « schools delegate » whose role is to connect all the TVET centres and schools, as well as to coordinate the centres initiatives and actions with AMDB.

AMDB employs one person at the training department in Lyon and three school delegates, each of these in charge of supervising the schools network in their geographical region. Jean-Noël Charmoille supervises the AMDB association.

At a national level, AMDB runs different services:

• a training department,
• a support department thanks to the “schools delegates” who supervise the different centres,
• a cultural events department, in charge of the organisation of a film festival Don Bosco Festiclip,
• a communication department who is always in contact with the Province (geographical area of schools and social care associations)
• working groups on specific issues (boarding schools, educational reforms, pedagogy..) and sharing of good practices
• the label « Campus International Don Bosco »

At a European level, AMDB encourages:

• all the actions related to internationalisation within the Salesian network, especially by launching the label « Campus International Don Bosco »
• the centres to participate to the annual European meetings for Projects-Schools, Vocational Training and Social in Europe
• the participation of European Salesian centres to cultural events such as film festivals promoting educational values, “Festiclip” among others.

The training departments are based in Lyon in France and in Grand-Halleux in Belgium.

The Salesian schools network is run by the French Ministry of Education as a member of the catholic schools network, « Enseignement Catholique sous Contrat d’Association avec l’Etat ». This means that all teachers are French government state workers.

The Salesian social care organisation is run on authorisation from the French government on the basis of agreements with governmental dedicated administrations such as departments, regions, ministries, family affairs administration, known in France as CAF, ASE, PJJ…

Most secondary schools in France are T-VET centres known in France as polytechnical secondary or vocational schools. They mostly address to disadvantaged youth as between 70 to 80% of Don Bosco beneficiaries faces a vulnerability, is out of mainstreamed VET services or is at risk of early school leaving situations. They have a positive image in their local communities for their expertise in educating young students who do not comply to the traditional school system for general education.

These organisations’ contract is to promote on the ground values that are stated in two charters known under titles « Projet Educatif Pastoral de l’Association » for schools and « Charte Don Bosco Action Sociale » for social care organisations. These values are : trust, prevention, sense of individual responsibility, taking affect dimensions into account, family spirit, the importance of joy and game, mediation, loving kindness, respect, practice against repressive punishment, management of conditions allowing the young person to succeed in his/her projects and development in all directions.

AMDB is a member of a larger Don Bosco network at international level whose scope comprises of 134 countries allowing both human and cultural open-mindedness towards a better understanding of the world. Concerning AMDB in France this dimension is developed through the label « Campus International Don Bosco » in order to value all initiatives in this direction.