CEBU CITY: 21st November 2005 -- 'Don Bosco-Centre
for Lay Adults and Youth (DB-CLAY) is a Salesian Institute of formation
for lay adults and youth to become Christ-centred, empowered
servant-leaders, living witnesses and agents of transformation in the
family, society, and the Church'. Thus reads the vision statement
of an institute that has been beavering away at Salesian formation of
the laity and the young for some years now. It finds its
inspiration especially in GC24, the Salesian document on the laity and
reinforced by GC25 especially in its insistence on a return to
evangelising presence amongst the young. DB-CLAY is a place, its is
people and it is programmes, in many ways the linchpin of Salesian
pastoral activity in the Southern Philippines Province (FIS).
It should be no surprise to note that the executive
director is a lay person, Mrs. Lori Rago. She answers directly to
the Provincial, but she also has a Council and together with her
council she oversees administration, adult programmes, youth formation
programmes and training development, the latter involving an entire
formation staff. The Spiritual Director is a Salesian, Fr Ronel
Vilbar, as is the Youth Programme Director, Fr Brodie Segovia, or at
least those were the office holders earlier this year.
The programmes focus on the universal call to
holiness, on growth in the Salesian vocation amongst members of the
Family, on deeper involvement in the Salesian mission by lay mission
partners, on empowering youth to be not just leaders, but
'servant-leaders'. An example of a specific programme would be
the Basic Salesianity Programme, run at two levels, one a more general
level, the other for Lay Mission partners. This programme works
on the basis of a one day workshop with specific objectives: a youth
'situationer', knowledge and appreciation of Don Bosco's early years,
the Preventive System. In the case of the second level for Lay
Mission partners, this is extended to a deeper knowledge of the
elements of the Preventive System.
Looking ahead, DB-CLAY sees itself as being
financially self-sustaining, able to offer a wide range of formation
modules and foster education and culture. Within five years it
would like to see itself as an NGO in fact and certainly a networking
nucleus for the Southern Province, but also, hopefully able to network
widely with places like Berkeley USA, Bangalore, UPS-Rome.
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