1655 VIE-Mongolia UB Children's Home model
austraLasia 1655

UB Savio Children's Home promoted as model institution

ULAAN BAATAR: 25th September 2006 -- Mongolia's Weekly, the Millennium Messenger, has promoted Savio Children's Home, run by the Salesian community at Amgalang, near Ulaan Baatar, as a model for all such institutions in Mongolia. The newspaper article included interviews with some of the 45 children housed there, and focused both on the background of the children and the quality and effectiveness of the service offered by the Salesians and their many helpers.  There are three full-time Salesians involved in the work, and many volunteers who help either full or part-time including at least 100 foreign volunteers (mainly from Korea) who have passed through the institution offering a helping hand this year.
    Now that the Amgalang Centre has come up to full strength in terms of Salesian personnel, the desire is to complete the building and to establish stronger links with the Don Bosco technical and skills centre in Ulaan baatar itself.  Already some 23 students are commuting daily to UB from Amgalang by truck to continue their studies.  They join 230 students who attend the city technical centre.
    Savio Home is not the only such institution run by the Salesians. A similar institution exists now in Darkhan further to the north of the country.  The Darkhan educational centre has 87 students who daily attend class for English and computer classes.  other students come to enjoy the oratory experience. The Salesians have established a name for themselves in both formal and informal education.  Mongolia has its universities but very few institutions which respond to the needs of skilled training, and the building industry is booming now in the urban centres in Mongolia, requiring skilled workers.
    Salesian presence in Mongolia, only 3 in number in 2001, will jump to 10 with the arrival of Fr Paul Leung from China province.  The Salesians are now the largest male Congregation amongst the Catholic communities in the country.  Hopes for 2007 include, besides the completion of the Savio Children's Centre, the building of a gymnasium at the Ulaan Bataar Don Bosco Techncial Centre and buying and/or building a proper Church in Darkhan.
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