austraLasia 1005
DBN gears up for long term Tsunami
strategy
ROME: 23rd January 2005 -- The Don Bosco Network met in Rome yesterday under the leadership of
the Councillor for the Missions, Fr Francis Alencherry SDB, to take stock of the
progress made in the help given to Tsunami affected areas. All the members of
Don Bosco network were represented at this meeting.
DBN is a network of Salesian NGOs (there are seven founder members) formed for
the purpose of networking and cooperating among themselves in order to manage
developmental projects in the Salesian style in missions conducted by
Salesians.
This was an extraordinary meeting,
more precisely to review what has already been done for the Tsunami
emergency and to work out a strategy for the continuation of the
work.
The following matters were
identified:
- The salesian response to the emergency has
been much appreciated in all circles, and there is no end to the number of
people who want to route their help to the Tsunami affected areas through the
Salesians because of the credibility gained thus far.
- So
far DBN has sent more than 2 million Euro to the affected provinces, most
for immediate relief and for the beginning of the rehabilitation
process.
- DBN is considering undertaking short and
long term projects for rehabilitation, education and production to the tune
of approximately 10 million Euro. Such work will be undertaken by all the
members of DBN on the basis of projects received from the affected areas. A host
of such projects have
already come in.
- VIS (a DBN
member group, the Salesian International Volunteer Organisation for Development)
together with the secretariat of DBN, has been doing the coordination of the
initiatives for Tsunami relief and rehabilitation and will continue to do
so.
- The three areas in which DBN is most active are the
Vice Province of Sri Lanka, and the provinces of Tiruchy and Chennai in India.
Help has also been sent to other provinces like Bangalore, Thailand and
Indonesia-Timor for assisting people affected. In these provinces either
the destruction has been not as serious as in the others, or the Salesians are
far away from the affected areas and are not able to help in a direct way.
-
This exercise has been a good example of how much can be done when different
organizations are able to network with each
other.
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