St. John Bosco was born on 16 August 1815 in the small village townland of Castelnuovo d’Asti, in Piedmont, popularly called “Becchi”  Italy.
While still a child, his father’s death made him feel the sorrow of so many orphans for whom he would become a loving father. He found, however, in his mother Margherita an example of Christian life which made a deep impression on his soul.

When he was nine years old, he had a dream that was prophetic. He seemed to be in the middle of a crowd of children at play, some of whom were however cursing. Suddenly, the young John threw himself at these, cursing, hitting and kicking them to make them be quiet. 

But a man appeared before him who said: “Don’t hit them, but with kindness and love you must win over these your friends. …I shall give you a Teacher under whose guidance you will be able to become wise, and without whom, all wisdom becomes nonsense”. That person was Jesus and the Teacher, the Virgin Mary, under whose guidance, he placed his whole life and whom he honoured with the title “Mary, Help of Christians”.

 This led John to want to learn to be an acrobat, a magician, a singer and a juggler so as to be able to attract companions to him and to keep them far from sin. “If they are with me,” he used say to his mother “they don’t curse”.

Wishing to become a priest and to dedicate himself entirely to the salvation of young people, he would work by day, and spend the nights at his books. Finally at the age of twenty, he was able to enter the Seminary in Chieri and to be ordained a priest in Turin in 1841, at the age of twenty-six.

In those times, Turin was "chock-a-block" with poor young people. These were either orphaned or abandoned, looking for work, and were exposed to many dangers of both body and soul. Don Bosco started to gather them together on Sundays, sometimes in a Church, out on a grassy meadow, or yet again in a town square to get them to play and to instruct them in the Catechism. After five years of enormous difficulties, he managed to establish and open in the outlying suburb of Valdocco his first Oratory.

In it, the boys found food and a bed. They would study or learn a trade, but above all they learned to love the Lord. Saint Dominic Savio was one of them.