1239 Vietnamese Past Pupils in Vietnam serving the youth of their country
austraLasia 1239

Vietnamese Past Pupils in Vietnam serving the youth of their country

HO CHI MINH CITY: 1st September 2005 --  We occasionally hear of the work of Vietnamese Salesian Past Pupils in various parts of the world.  They are very active in the US, for example.  But not so often do we get a glimpse of their activity in Vietnam itself.  However, the President of Vietnam's national federation explains in some detail the progress they are making.
"Our objective is to strengthen once more our Federation, to increase more Local Associations and recruit more new members, with the purpose to be strong and to serve effectively the Vietnamese youth within the Vietnam Salesian Family.
Right now our Federation has 15 active Local Unions and 125 members. In the last two years, after returning home from the World’ Congress, and especially after my trip to the United States where I had a great chance to meet a lot of Vietnamese friends and former students, some concrete initiatives have been drawn up to support fellow Past Pupils in my homeland. Together with the Salesian Delegate the administrative committee has twice made a tour around the country. To visit our dear Past Pupils in the far away provinces, to fortify the Local Unions as well as to establish new ones. Each local Union will keep an eye on all the Past pupils in the area attached to the Salesian House in its locality and have a Salesian of that Community as an animator to the Union. The Local Unions are of course autonomous in organising their activities and sharing among themselves educational and apostolic initiatives. They have their traditional days, and Retreat days in Advent, or at Lent.
The administrative members have the duty to assist at the local traditional days and other situations their presence is needed.
On the part of the Federation: the Executive Council has the duty to organise the festivities within the Salesian Family whenever it takes place. We have to assist at the great events taking place in the Salesian Family. Last June, on the 19th of June 2005, we organized the annual meeting of the members of the Federation, to revise our activities and to draw out the orientations for next year.
We have to keep in mind the vocational guidance of young Past Pupils and the children of Past Pupils who are about to join the world of work. We are able to support the children of poor Past Pupils by a scholarship, sponsored by our Past Pupils living abroad, especially in the USA. They also sponsored for us a computer centre for software activities. But this project is still under discussion, because we lack personnel (trained experts) and appropriate business premises.
Next year June 2006 will be our 2nd Election Assembly. In 2007 we will hold our Second National Congress. Our task is to revise all our activities of the past four years, revise once again our Statutes and vote for a new National Presidency for a new four years term, to bring new blood into our Federation.
We hope to have more information and assistance from all friends and colleagues Past Pupils from all over the world, aiming to serve the youth of our Country just as Don Bosco did this for us in the past."
"Good on you", as we say in certain parts of our Region!

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