A System Outside the System: Czech Salesians and their Clandestine Summer Camps in the 1970s and 1980s
2015
Abstrakt
This paper describes the underground youth work of the members and lay supporters of the religious order of Salesians of Don Bosco in the Communist-governed Czech Republic. The focus is on the clandestine summer camps (nicknamed "the cabins") and the education and training of the camp leaders and counsellors.
Unlike typical dissent activities, the camps created "parallel" space for school age children and adolescents. Another distinctive feature of the Salesian system of youth work and education was the quantitative size, broad regional and social scope and complex training system for the leaders of the camps.