austraLasia #2367
(apologies for short break in service. Tied up in meetings elsewhere in Europe, but bit by bit....)

Hope takes off

MANILA: 26th February 2009: A program that has been in place since 2003 in the Asia and Oceania region, offered by Samsung, now includes the Don Bosco Foundation of the Philippines as one of its beneficiaries. The program is known as Hope Takes Off. Readers may feel inspired to spread news of this information, after checking out details of the program below. It offers possibilities not only for the Philippines but elsewhere in the EAO Region.

Clicking on www.samsunghope.org will bring you to an interesting flash presentation of a rising balloon (if you have Flash, otherwise you will get three balloons - choose one). Entering the pages eventually presented, you can check the list of beneficiaries and you will see that they are in Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Amongst the several Philippines beneficiaries is the Don Bosco Foundation, and clicking on this will lead you to a succinct statement of the Salesian mission as it is expressed in the particular context of the Philippines North Province, and some appropriately chosen photographs, with an invitation to viewers to support this Foundation.

'Hope Takes Off' "aims to deliver the aid needed to help the young rise aqbove challenging beginnings and reach for the stars. A fund of US$ 700,000 has been allocated for 21 beneficiaries with a campaign to give the public a say on the distribution of funds".

This item came in at a time when the World Advisory Council on Communications for the Salesians was meeting in Madrid and wrapping up a three day meeting which covered some substantial issues for the Congregation in a media-created culture. Among many deliberations and recommendations of this meeting were those dealing with the importance of carefully created media campaigns both internal and external to the Congregation, the sheer necessity for communications strategies even amongst (especially amongst) our own, be it Project Europe or any other project we are running, and the need to document best and worst practice in this regard in the Congregation!  The morning's email brought not only this example (of best practice I hasten to add!) from the Philippines, but a request from one of our big Mission and Development operators for official jingles for the Congrregation.  It all helps to make the point.
**************
An entirely different issue: if you have been receiving bogus emails from confreres in desperate straits located in one or other major city in the world, you know of course what to do - delete the email and leave it at that. Any confrere in desperate straits will have better resources than general appeals to the world at large even if the email appears to be personalised. In one instance this was followed up by police involvement, but the scam is too big for the individual receiver to do anything about. Certainly do not, under any circumstances, respond to those emails since you only add your address and possibly that of others to the scam. Let the affected confrere deal with the issue (initially by dumping that address and opening a new one).