HUA HIN --
Fr Dominic Savio Suphot Riungam was born in 1958 in Prachuap
Khiri Khan
in the Kingdom of Thailand. He is now the rector of a
formation house
for young men deciding to be Salesians of Don Bosco, at
Sampran, 40
kilometers to the west of Bangkok.
The Salesian House at Sampran has a prenovitiate with 9
students, three
of them from Cambodia, the postnovitiate with three clerics
and one
brother and the Saint Dominic Savio House retreat centre for
children,
under the care of Fr John Baptist Suthep.
The vice-rector at Sampran is Fr Francis
Cais.
Fr. Suphot told donboscoasia.info that this year the house
will also host the
novitiate after May with probably 4 or 5 novices, two of them
from Cambodia.
donboscoasia (DBA):
What is the situation of vocations for the Salesians today in
Thailand?
Fr. Suphot (FS): The
difficulty is that young people today do not dare to think of
a
vocation. It seems like they are afraid to think about it.
Maybe it is
also that today there are a lot attractions from the world
like the
development of technologies and they want to enjoy it all.
They think
they will not enjoy it if they follow Jesus. They fear they
will lose
the freedom they think they have.
DBA: What is
the situation
for the Catholic Church in Thailand and tell us about the
proportion of
Catholic students in Salesian schools.
FS: The Thai Catholic
Church
is rather small, just 0.5 percent of the total population. We
are about
250,000 Catholics. The proportion of Catholic students in our
schools
is about 5 percent. It means, in a group of one thousand
students, you
might have 50 Catholics, except for Saint Dominic's School in
Bangkok
where most students are Catholic.
DBA: What do the
Salesians of Don Bosco do in Thailand?
FS: We have three
areas of activity:
The first is parishes
in the
Surat Thani province, southern Thailand, where the bishop is a
Salesian, Bishop Joseph Prathan. Most of the parishes are
under the
care of the Salesians, about 20 parishes. Two out of three
parishes in
that diocese are under our care.
The second area is schools.
We
have five academic schools and two technical centres. The
academic
schools are in Udon Thani, Sarasit, Saint Dominic in Bangkok,
Hua Hin
and Haad Yai. The two technical schools both have the name
'Don Bosco',
and are in Bangkok and Bampong. But we are in charge also of
four
diocesan schools.
The third area is homes for the poor. We have one in
Chang Mai, for
tribal youngsters and one in Bansak, in the south, for
children
orphaned by the tsunami.
DBA: What would be
your message to young people in Asia, especially students in
our Salesian schools.
FS: The life of the
young is
very precious. Young people are full of energy and we must do
everything to support them. My message to all young people can
be
divided in two pieces of advice: first, be responsible for
your life
and what you have to do; second, participate, get involved, in
the
community and place where you are, your school, your parish...
don't
remain alone.
