KEP: 6
January 2012 -- Dear All,
Greetings from the Don Bosco Vocational Center, Kep City,
Cambodia.
In October 2011 this house began academic activities with 40
students
(including 17 young women) in social communication &
journalism and
hotel skills (housekeeping and front office.) programs We
selected the
students from the applicants to the Don Bosco Technical School
in
Sihanoukville, giving preference to those young people coming
from the
provinces of Kep, Kompot and Takao, because 50 percent of the
Don Bosco
Sihanoukville students' population comes from this south-east
area,
bordering Vietnam. There were more than 1,400 applicants in
Sihanoukville by August 2011 but we can choose only 300. Among
our
students there are two young men studying communication coming
from
Kompong Thom, a very populated Cambodian province with the
lowest
educational capacity (availability of facilities) in the
country. Two
young men from the Kreng indigenous communities of Ratanakiri
province
were also accepted - a sign that Don Bosco is required also in
the
impoverished north of Cambodia.
Lessons and a provisional dormitory began in the old
buildings, while
workers began construction of the main building that will be
for the
social communication & journalism section (ground floor),
secretarial section (first floor) and male students residence
(second
floor). In November the builders poured the foundations for
the female
students' residence.
We appreciate all the support we are receiving in order to
develop this
new educational project for the good of Cambodian young
people,
especially those from poor rural areas of the provinces of
Kep, Kompot
and Takeo. We expect that the Don Bosco Vocational Centre in
Kep will
have a positive impact in this region made up largely of
fishermen and
farmers, with few opportunities to continue a professional
formation - donboscokep.org.
Kep City is also developing as an eco-tourism spot. We have
received
positive feedback from different local hotels that need
skilled
personnel from our hotel skills program. Our dream is to be
able to
construct seven bungalows by the seaside that can be a place
for the
training of our students, while providing some income.
The social communication & journalism section at
Sihanoukville is
also having a good impact, especially in the audiovisual
edition
department. Different audiovisual media and organizations are
requesting our students as cameramen and audiovisual editors.
Therefore, we want to have an audiovisual centre in Kep, like
we have
in Sihanoukville. You can follow some of the audiovisual
productions on
our youtube and vimeo channels - just type 'Don Bosco
Sihanoukville'.
Look at our latest video about Don Bosco Kep (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGiB8bIUlbM&feature=player_embedded)
You can also follow updates of our activities in our Facebook
groups
(Don Bosco Kep), Twitter (SDBofCambodia) and Skype
(Albeiror24).
I would like to invite you to visit us, to meet our young
people,
teachers and volunteers and see the development of our
constructions.
We need many things, but we are very optimistic because we
have many friends, who love the young people.
