Salesian Sisters of Southern Africa - Province of Our Lady of Peace

Our Vision and Mission

A Religious Family born from the heart of St. John Bosco and the creative fidelity of St. Mary Domenica Mazzarello.

We are the largest Congregation of religious women with over 11,000 Sisters serving in 98 countries. Founded in 1872 by St. John Bosco and St. Mary Mazzarello, the Salesian Sisters are dedicated to reaching the youth for Christ. The Salesian Sisters arrived in South Africa in 1961; in Lesotho, in 1983 and in Zambia in 1984. The new Province of Our Lady of Peace in Southern Africa was created in 1995 with 45 sisters. We have grown since then to 72 sisters.

Charismatic Vision

The Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, consecrated to God to serve Jesus Christ in community, dedicate their life to the Human, Christian, and Salesian education of the young people.

Don Bosco chose for us Mary, Help of Christians, who knew how to incarnate and live the pedagogy of ‘taking care’, which concretizes our educative passion for the young and makes them women and men who generate life in the heart of Contemporaneity.

We are known in the world as Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco.

Charismatic Mission

The goal of our work is the integral growth of people, the accompaniment of the young in their journey of maturation in their life project, faith formation based on the Gospel values, and education to active citizenship, to gratuitousness, and to solidarity, in the style of Don Bosco’s Preventive System. In a word, to form “honest citizens and good Christians”.

We work, mainly, with and for poor youth throughout the world.

Our Salesian spirituality is centred on the Holy Eucharist, devotion to Mary and fidelity to the Church’s Magisterium. Our apostolates in Southern Africa, apart from our Prayer Ministry, include Schools, Skills Training Centres, Boarding Facilities, Day Care, Camps, Spiritual Ministries, Vocational Formation Centres, Oratories, Parish Work and Catechism, Youth Centres, Young Adult Ministry and Promotion of the Woman, because the education of the young woman is a basic priority choice of the FMA.

10 things you should know about us

THE DEVELOPMENT OFFICE

Objectives and Functions

The Salesian Sisters Planning and Development Office (SSPDO) is the development sector of the AFM Province. We are committed to support the educational, philanthropic, charitable, human and spiritual goals of each mission in their role of offering education, skills training, faith community-based projects, capacity building and entrepreneurship.

Our Development Plans

Facilitate strategic planning

The Strategic Plan drives the development of our institution, by considering each and every aspect of its reality, as well as planning objectively its harmonious growth. It takes note of the energy and resources and establishes priorities in order to reach the goals of the organization.

Provide guidance to our Provincial development projects

We seek to be a point of reference and guidance to our Provincial development projects, to engage volunteer resources, to promote development from inside out, to create collaboration with other associations and to be a connector in the FMA Province.

Become agents of social transformation

Our aim is to encourage local communities to become agents of social transformation and self-sustainability, by increasing their participation in community development activities, through networking and the involvement of all stakeholders in a sustainable development towards balanced growth.