Japan-Don Bosco Samoa
Cooperation:
'language of love' provides new electronics workshop
APIA: 4 August 2012 -- “This
new electronics workshop at Don Bosco Technical Centre Alafua
provides the basis for improving the technical capacity of the
young people of Samoa”, said his Excellency, Mr Hideto
Mitamura, the Japanese Ambassador to Samoa at the official
blessing and opening of the recently completed facility on 2
August. Mr Mitamura was joined by other dignitaries including
the Prime Minister of Samoa, the Honourable Tuilaepa
Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi and the Director of Catholic
Education, Aeau Chris Hazelman to celebrate a project that
resulted from initiative of one man.
Mr Kuniaki Suzuki, a volunteer with the Japanese International
Cooperation Agency (JICA) has spent the past two years working
at Don Bosco Alafua, primarily teaching electronics out of a
converted classroom and without a proper laboratory or
workshop and without the necessary furniture or equipment. Mr
Suzuki is a man of vast professional experience and technical
expertise and capacity to love. In his time at Don Bosco he
has grown to love the school, the teachers and the boys, and
they have returned that love in abundance. He is also a man
with an extraordinary vision. He dreamt of establishing a
proper electronics and electrics facility to improve the
facilities and the educational outcomes of the students. Mr
Suzuki set about petitioning the Japanese Embassy in New
Zealand for the funds to realise his project.
He and Sr Monika Vaipuna RNDM, the Principal of Don Bosco,
undertook the planning application process in collaboration
with various agencies and officials. Mr Suzuki refused to
allow language problems, and the obvious difficulties and
frustrations that caused, to distract him from his primary
purpose: a proper workshop for his boys. The Rector of the
Alafua Community, Fr Nicholas Castelyns SDB, who described the
project as a work of love, alluded to these language
difficulties in his prayer of blessing:
We thank you for Mr Suzuki, the man with the dream, and for
all those who helped to make this dream come true. We thank
you for Sister Monika, who supported him regardless of
problems of language communication. It has shown us that in
spite of the difference of languages, the language of love
unites us all.
The language of love conquers all and after countless hours of
dealing with a multitude of bureaucracies his application for
funding was approved and now his dream has become a reality:
the Government and the People of Japan would fund the
materials for the project, with the labour to be paid by local
sources. The construction of the electronics thus became a
project that involved the whole parent community, who
undertook a series of fundraising activities to generate the
funds for the school to be able to make its contribution to
the project.
The Prime Minister offered a vote of thanks to the people and
government of Japan for their ongoing support for Samoa.
“Neither Japan nor Samoa is rich in natural resources”, said
the Prime Minister, “Yet Japan has shown the world how to
utilise the resources of its people, who have been able to
take natural products from all over the world, transform them
and then sell them to the countries that supplied the original
raw materials. Samoa’s greatest resource is its people. We are
rich in man-power. This facility assists in enabling us to
develop the technical capacity of our people and contributes
towards the development of the nation.”
The students provided first rate entertainment for the
visitors and dignitaries with a superb display of singing and
dancing. The festivities concluded in typically Salesian and
typically Samoan style with guests, students and staff
enjoying food and refreshments.
