1334 DB-CLAY: an impressive programme from FIS
austraLasia 1334

DB-CLAY: an impressive programme from FIS

CEBU CITY: 21st November 2005 --  'Don Bosco-Centre for Lay Adults and Youth (DB-CLAY) is a Salesian Institute of formation for lay adults and youth to become Christ-centred, empowered servant-leaders, living witnesses and agents of transformation in the family, society, and the Church'.  Thus reads the vision statement of an institute that has been beavering away at Salesian formation of the laity and the young for some years now.  It finds its inspiration especially in GC24, the Salesian document on the laity and reinforced by GC25 especially in its insistence on a return to evangelising presence amongst the young. DB-CLAY is a place, its is people and it is programmes, in many ways the linchpin of Salesian pastoral activity in the Southern Philippines Province (FIS).
    It should be no surprise to note that the executive director is a lay person, Mrs. Lori Rago.  She answers directly to the Provincial, but she also has a Council and together with her council she oversees administration, adult programmes, youth formation programmes and training development, the latter involving an entire formation staff.  The Spiritual Director is a Salesian, Fr Ronel Vilbar, as is the Youth Programme Director, Fr Brodie Segovia, or at least those were the office holders earlier this year.
    The programmes focus on the universal call to holiness, on growth in the Salesian vocation amongst members of the Family, on deeper involvement in the Salesian mission by lay mission partners, on empowering youth to be not just leaders, but 'servant-leaders'.  An example of a specific programme would be the Basic Salesianity Programme, run at two levels, one a more general level, the other for Lay Mission partners.  This programme works on the basis of a one day workshop with specific objectives: a youth 'situationer', knowledge and appreciation of Don Bosco's early years, the Preventive System.  In the case of the second level for Lay Mission partners, this is extended to a deeper knowledge of the elements of the Preventive System.
    Looking ahead, DB-CLAY sees itself as being financially self-sustaining, able to offer a wide range of formation modules and foster education and culture.  Within five years it would like to see itself as an NGO in fact and certainly a networking nucleus for the Southern Province, but also, hopefully able to network widely with places like Berkeley USA, Bangalore, UPS-Rome.

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