2936 AUL Youth Festivals Melbourne and Samoa
austraLasia #2936
Double youth celebration in Australia-Pacific
Province
MEBLOURNE: 28 October 2011 -- The weekend from Friday to
Sunday, 14-16 October, was marked by two different
celebrations of the Salesian Youth Movement: one in
Australia and the other in Samoa.
The celebration in Australia was further development of what
is becoming an annual celebration of OzBosco. It was held on
the Valdocco Campus of St Joseph’s College, Ferntree Gully.
Accommodation and all the meals (at Dromana and Ferntree
Gully) were provided by the Don Bosco Camp staff. The
celebration in Samoa was called “A Celebration of Salesian
Youth.” It was held at Don Bosco Technical Centre, Alafua.
These events were marked by a gathering
of young people from across Salesian works, and from the
province's various leadership groups. There were more than
150 young people at Ferntree Gully, and a feature of the
celebration was that it was entirely planned and run by
young people themselves. It was fun-filled, reflective, and
a powerful experience of the richness that is generated when
a group of like-minded young people who love Don Bosco
gather together. The theme for the weekend was Sharing
our experience of the Salesian Charism.
One of the features of the Australian
experience was the large gathering of FMA Sisters. They were
with the young people across all three days, and played an
important animating role in all the events. The best
advertisement for the FMAs and the SDBs is the FMAs and the
SDBs.
The same quality appeared in the large
number of young people from the three Salesian Parishes and
Youth Centres and two schools in Samoa. The theme of this
weekend was Be Joyful. One of the features of this
Pacific weekend was the exposure of the young people to
forms of prayer that is entirely new to them: e.g.
Taizé prayer. Every Salesian currently working in
Samoa spent all or part of the time with
youngsters from both Upolu and Savai’i.
