3101 "Celebrating children": another of the 20th anniversary events for DBCF
austraLasia #3101

 
"Celebrating children":  another of the 20th anniversary events for DBCF
PHNOM PENH: 22 July 2012 -- “Celebrating Children” was the 20th anniversary activity that featured the gathering of more than 2,200 children from forty-seven villages of fourteen provinces of Cambodia at the Don Bosco Technical School Campus at Phnom Penh on 21st July 2012 to celebrate 20 years of love and service (1992-2012). Salesians, DBCF staff, volunteers, adults, youth and children were around St. John Bosco, Father and Teacher of youth with songs, dances, dramas and life witnesses of better change after having helped and supported by DBCF ministries. DBCF has served poor and marginalized children to access to compulsory basic and literacy education and AIDS orphans are offered health and education opportunities like any ordinary child in Cambodia.

“Educating children, building their future” summarizes the activities of the Don Bosco Children Fund (DBCF) Cambodia. Conceived in January 25, 1992 to give opportunities to poor and orphaned children to go school and receive basic education, the project continues up to this date.

It is important not to confuse two entities here: the DBFC, or Don Bosco Foundation, Cambodia, which had its origins in the Khmer Refugee camps in Thailand in the 1980s, then developed into a fully-fledged organisation under the Salesian Congregation Thai Province, and the DBCF or Don Bosco Children Fund, created by the DBFC to support children from vulnerable communities so they can have basics such as food to eat and schools to attend. Both entities involve a huge number of donors, volunteers, NGOs, local support reaching to the highest levels of the Kingdom of Cambodia.

It is fitting that the DB school in Phnom Penh was chosen for this particular gathering. After Royal invitation in 1990 for 'Don Bosco' to come to the city. the DB school opened a year later. It was the first of what has developed into a major educational presence across many parts of the kingdom