'Many islands - what
we need are a few more bridges': YM delegates grope forward
CHEUNG CHAU HK: 8th February 2006 -- It was just one line
amongst many. Extracting the key ideas from a set of minutes about
seven hours you weren't at is like playing Chinese pick up sticks with
noodles. But, many islands - need more bridges might
even beat the frogs for best image of the week. Nine provinces
and a delegation, different in every way imaginable; a mixture of
delegates and provincials with a vice provincial or two thrown
in; a number of provinces physically comprising many islands,
more than one culture and not too many bridges. It was bound to
be an interesting day!
The Youth Ministry Delegates were joined today by
the Provincials, with the exception of Vietnam, still awaiting
visas. Fr Dominic Sequeira pulled together the threads from three
years ago in Lysterfield, and from the past two days and summed up the
surveyed YM model, planning mentality and animation of youth ministry
in the region. On a plus and minus chart there are more pluses,
but the difficulties have clarified themselves basically into the
following: there are not a lot of bridges between delegate and
communities, the concept of 'animation' is not necessarily well
understood, the EPC is core to it all and that is not always well
formed, and there needs to be coordination and animation at provincial
level.
A workshop on how best to facilitate the role of the
YM delegate elicited the following: AUL needs to look at how to better
link the two YM bodies they have, PAT (Pastoral Animation Team) which
tends more to the charismatic element in YM and SPAA (Salesian
Principals Association of Australia) which looks at a more professional
side of Salesian school operation, and therein lies the challenge, to
'marry' these two contributions; CIN notes the huge change in its
situation over 20 years and the consequent need to analyse the model of
YM animation in place, through awareness-raising of the Preventive
System, looking at the role of competence - skill and knowledge, and
collaboration in teamwork and community. A varied range of ideas
came forward to the general assembly. Here, one had a sense of
the 'many islands' looking for 'bridges'. Is SEPP in fact more of
a Latin American concept not all that successful in an Asian context,
one group wondered? In some ways there were more questions than
answers, but again, as in previous days, the objective reader not
caught up the tangle of argument could detect a clear thread or two;
the delegate is not alone....every Salesian is a youth minister and nor
can it be reduced to a 'dicastero'. Youth ministry is our mission
and raison d'etre.
The Provinces put forward some tentative priorities
for the next few years, again each reflecting differences, but with
some common elements: THA - the move to a focus on youth at risk and
developing SEPP; CIN - translating the 'simplified model' into Chinese
and developing SEPP; PNG-SI - developing the journey of faith of young
people; FIN - YM and EPC; AUL - the two animation bodies to deepen
their relationship for development of all dimensions, and the beginning
of the lay missionary movement in the province; FIS - revise SEPP and
strengthen SYM; KOR - help communities with the pastoral model and
SEPP; ITM - SEPP and a good YM team; GIA - establish a context where YM
delegate can enter all the works and be accepted, improve pastoral
activities to youth at province level.
The meeting concluded with some solid effort to find
real bridges in a culturally disparate region. Sharing through
email-website-exchange of materials was an obvious one. The
Region's vision and mission statement foresees common projects - WYD
Sydney 2008 seems a clear opportunity, including a Salesian meeting for
world participants. AUL will tackle the 'housing' for this
one. There is also the AYD (Asian Youth Day) this year- CIN
looking after this one.
In the end, many provinces would agree with a
closing comment by the CIN provincial, if any or all of the above is to
really matter in the future: "I think we need to promote vocations in
our Province!"
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