Over 100 coaches for about 1700 kids between the ages of 5 to 21: This is the Schuster Centre, a multi-sports Centre founded in the Lambrate area, Milan, in 1954, on the initiative of Fr Lodovico Morelli SJ, who was then a young Jesuit, and supported by Cardinal Schuster.

For 64 years it has been a place and a tool for educating young people according to the Ignatian spirit. It developed into a sports amateur association in 2003, and today is run by a group of lay people. It offers six sports disciplines – athletics, artistic gymnastics, football, basketball, volleyball and tennis – as well as summer camps where young children are introduced to the various sports disciplines and where the older people can start practicing gymnastics for adults.

Recently this centre has merged with the Jesuit Education Foundation and so it is benefitting from the support given for the training of coaches and organizers. In addition to the support given by the priests, Fr. Danieli is responsible for the spiritual formation while Fr. Umberto Librarato celebrates mass on Saturday. “No preaching, just evangelisation through the sports ground. The sports participants are trained to win but at the same time they are taught to respect the adversary, thus building an authentic team spirit”.