"I
am often struck by the radical message of the Gospel..."
by Shaun
Larcom
LONDON:
27 April 2012-- Shaun
Larcom
studied for a doctorate at University College London. There
he
met Fr John Dickson SDB, Rector of the Battersea Salesian
Community and
a chaplain at the University. Fr Dickson introduced him to
Fr John
Cabrido, a Filipino Salesian who stayed in Battersea last
year while
publishing his doctorate in the UK. We thank Shaun for
sending us the
following article and photographs: (This article
courtesy of GBR website)
For my PhD fieldwork in late 2010 I was hosted by the
Salesians of Don
Bosco in one of the remotest parts of Papua New Guinea. Owing
to their
generous welcome, I was able to base myself at their community
house in
Kokopo where they run the agro-technical college Vunabosco.
Their
welcome and assistance was the passport that enabled me to
conduct
empirical research for my PhD in a country where it is
notoriously
difficult. But perhaps more importantly, it also gave me a
chance to
experience the life of the Salesian missionary community and
to see
their work at first hand.
I first became interested in Papua New Guinea after working as
an
economist in Port Moresby on loan from the Australian
Treasury. At the
time many of my Papua New Guinean colleagues had been victims
of
robbery and car-jackings, and had to take extraordinary steps
to limit
their movements to protect themselves and their families. I
also
learned of many personal and family tragedies caused through
violence.
After a few years of thinking about it, I decided to begin a
PhD at
University College London on Crime and Legal Pluralism in
Papua New
Guinea and soon after I got involved with Newman House
(London's
Central Catholic Chaplaincy). Fr John Dickson SDB, one of
Newman
House's chaplains asked me to present my research topic at
NewLaw, a
seminar series he had established for law students. A month or
so after
he informed me that Fr John Cabrido SDB was visiting his
community from
Papua New Guinea and arranged a meeting. Not only did Fr John
Cabrido
give me a warm invitation to visit, within a couple of weeks
he had
organised a two month itinerary for my fieldwork, including
hosts,
guides, translators, and transport. Given the many
difficulties
involved, almost no empirical legal research has been
conducted in
Papua New Guinea over the last couple of decades, so Fr John's
assistance was invaluable. Importantly, one of the key
findings of my
econometric analysis is that education seems to play a much
greater
role in reducing the propensity to engage in payback killings
than
harsh criminal penalties.
I am often struck by the
radical
message of the Gospel and how non-radical my own response
can be. The
same cannot be said for the Salesian missionary priests and
brothers
that I met and lived with. They really have embraced
Christ's radical
challenge to give up all they have and to come follow Him.
Leaving the
comforts of home, including their families and friends, they
live a
life of service and prayer that reminded me of descriptions
of the
early Church in the Acts. Furthermore, they take up this
call in
extremely difficult conditions, including threats to their
personal
security. At the time, the community at Vunabosco consisted
of priests
and brothers from the Philippines South Korea, Kenya, India
and Papua
New Guinea. This in included Father Tim, one of Barcelona's
Football
Club's greatest fans and Brother Otto from Papua New Guinea,
who took
me on an unforgettable a trip to his home village of Tarkis.
Waking
early and after prayer and Mass (which many students also
attend), each
day is devoted to ensuring the students gain the very best
education,
ranging from ordering in food for the students,
participating in
afternoon sport, to taking classes themselves. Furthermore,
they each
undertake their day's work with great enthusiasm and
generosity of
spirit.
The Salesian schools and technical colleges in Papua New
Guinea are
oases of peace and education in an otherwise often harsh and
violent
world. Vunabosco gives a chance for many young men to gain an
education
that they would not otherwise have. Being a non-selective
school, they
take as many students as they can, regardless of their
academic
ability. In a country where secondary and technical education
is
reserved for the very few, they provide a vital service to the
New
Guinea Islands. The students gain an excellent education,
despite very
limited resources, that helps them flourish and serve their
communities
when they return home. Many of the school's students are in
their
twenties due to the Bougainville conflict (1989-2001) which
saw the
almost complete destruction of the island's infrastructure,
including
its schools, and during which the bulk of the population fled
to the
mountains to seek refuge from the fighting. One of the former
students
from Bougainville that I met returned to his home village and
built a
hydroelectric generator from scraps which provides regular
electricity
to his whole village.
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