Background:
Four independent Federations of Salesian Youth Centers existing at that time (Andalucia, Cataluña, Madrid and Comunidad Valenciana) decided to constitute a common structure on the national level-CONFEDERACIÓN DE CENTROS JUVENILES DON BOSCO DE ESPAÑA on 12th May 1991, during the 8th State meeting of Youth Centers celebrated in Pamplona city. (This happened a few months before the 150th anniversary commemorating the well-known meeting between Don Bosco and Bartolomé Garelli in the Turin’s sacristy, the majority of the Salesian Youth Centers in Spain were creating their own Confederation.) This was the start how Salesian Youth Centers (inspired by the educative experience of Don Bosco and his preventive system) incorporated themselves into the actual society as authentical youth centers, open for all young people, based on the educative project for leisure time. From this moment on, the Youth Centre is not perceived only as premises where young people just come and spend their leisure time. Conceptions which spread ideas that the youth centre is only place for entertainment where different activities are developed, are nowadays old-fashioned. Step by step, occupation of leisure has turned to real social compromise. At the beginning of the 1990s, other federations were founded and soon incorporated themselves into the Confederation. (Murcia, Aragón, Galicia, Castilla y León, Euskadi and finally Canarias). Nowadays the Confederación consists of 9 federations which don’t correspond to state organization of Autonome Communities (Not each Autonome Community has got its own federation) and associates about 135 Salesian Youth Centers. The Confederación takes responsibility for legal cover and promotion of Youth Centers in those Autonome Communities where, due to different circumstances, Federations cannot develop. Actually all Salesian Youth Centers can receive benefits from opportunities which the Confederación provides by means of Federations offering formative courses, technical and economical resources, support and counselling and many other initiatives which contribute to the development of Youth Centers as entities of education, prevention and youth participation. Although there are many different kinds of understanding of the Salesian Youth Centre in Spain, all of them are united in the fundamental lines and are rooted in the educative system of Don Bosco. There are many young volunteers who understood the compromise to be “descendents of a dream”, the one in which Don Bosco started to create the “World of options for young people”.