1005 DBN looks at long term Tsunami strategy
austraLasia 1005
 
DBN gears up for long term Tsunami strategy
 
ROME: 23rd January 2005 --  The Don Bosco Network met in Rome yesterday under the leadership of the Councillor for the Missions, Fr Francis Alencherry SDB, to take stock of the progress made in the help given to Tsunami affected areas. All the members of Don Bosco network were represented at this meeting.
    DBN is a network of Salesian NGOs (there are seven founder members) formed for the purpose of networking and cooperating among themselves in order to manage developmental projects in the Salesian style in missions conducted by Salesians.
    This was an extraordinary meeting, more precisely to review what has already been done for the Tsunami emergency and to work out a strategy for the continuation of the work.
    The following matters were identified:
    - The salesian response to the emergency has been much appreciated in all circles, and there is no end to the number of people who want to route their help to the Tsunami affected areas through the Salesians because of the credibility gained thus far.
    - So far DBN has sent more than 2 million Euro to the affected provinces, most for immediate relief and for the beginning of the rehabilitation process.
    - DBN is considering undertaking short and long term projects for rehabilitation, education and production to the tune of approximately 10 million Euro. Such work will be undertaken by all the members of DBN on the basis of projects received from the affected areas. A host of such projects have
already come in.
    - VIS (a DBN member group, the Salesian International Volunteer Organisation for Development) together with the secretariat of DBN, has been doing the coordination of the initiatives for Tsunami relief and rehabilitation and will continue to do so.
    - The three areas in which DBN is most active are the Vice Province of Sri Lanka, and the provinces of Tiruchy and Chennai in India. Help has also been sent to other provinces like Bangalore, Thailand and Indonesia-Timor for assisting people affected. In these provinces either the destruction has been not as serious as in the others, or the Salesians are far away from the affected areas and are not able to help in a direct way.
- This exercise has been a good example of how much can be done when different organizations are able to network with each other.
______________________
'austraLasia' is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia-Pacific.  It functions also as an agency for ANS, based in Rome.  Try also www.bosconet.aust.com  and Lexisdb  If you would like a copy of the Salesian Thesaurus, do not hesitate to ask by return mail.  In hard copy 132 pages; in digital form 157 kb.