EAO, 14 May 2021 -- One of the many fruits of the regular meetings among the EAO Eco team since its inception is to be united in a concrete and clear step on raising environmental awareness across the region in a very Salesian way: education and evangelization. Since there have been global campaigns almost each month, the team has been organizing collective activities such as collage video prayer, collage video message and eco-youth virtual gathering to ignite this environmental awareness to the Salesian family.

The team has been working closely with the youth from various parts of the region to realize the aforementioned activities. The collage video prayer for the care of our common home was launched successfully on World Earth Day, 22 April 2021 primarily because of the active involvement of the youth starting from the composition of the prayer content, to leading or saying a line from the prayer to their own language and until the editing of the video. Since Laudato Si Week 2021 is just around the corner, the next big activity being prepared at the moment is the first ever eco youth virtual activity dubbed as “Earth gRACE: Regional Salesian Youth Gathering” with the theme “Care for Our Common Home”, highlighting Pope Francis’s Laudato Si. The general objective of the activity is to celebrate the growth of living out Laudato Si as a Salesian Youth and as a region. Slated on 23 May 2021, 15:30 to 17:00 Hongkong time, this would be a great opportunity for the young people to connect with their fellow youth in the region, to learn and be inspired with the eco-stories’ sharing and to discuss how the youth of today can contribute towards a sustainable future together. Prior to the main celebration, exciting, fun-filled and educational virtual games are being prepared for the youth to participate from 16 to 22 May 2021. Details and instructions will be communicated very soon to the Pastoral animators in the region to invite more young people to join in this unique gathering in this time of pandemic.

Because of time limitations, the collage video message, another project in collaboration with the youth will be released in time for the World Environment Day 2021 on 5 June.

The collective efforts of the Eco team and the youth make this series of ecological awareness campaigns more special and meaningful. The more the young people understand what’s happening around, the more they are involved. The more they are involved, the higher the chance for an ecological transformation in the society. However, in order to bridge that gap, the Salesian family members are strongly invited to accompany the youth and fuel the latter’s ecological empowerment.