AFW NEWSLETTER July -August%2C 2013


AFW NEWSLETTER July -August%2C 2013

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News Letter July - August, 2013
FR. FABIO ATTARD
VISITS AFW PROVINCE
O n Monday evening 19th August, 2013 Fr. Fabio
Attard, the Councillor for Youth ministry, was
welcomed to the Provincial house in Ghana, West Af-
rica English speaking Province (AFW Province).
After Mass on Tuesday morning confreres assem-
bled in the conference room for sharing which was di-
vided into two sessions. The morning session focused
on the challenges that young people of Africa are fac-
ing today. The Salesians were asked to go into groups
of 3 persons and to come out with three major chal-
lenges youth are facing today. In Africa the follow-
ing points emerged: poverty, family breakdown, media
negative impart, globalization, unemployment, lack of
direction, lack of appreciation of Cultural heritage.
Fr. Fabio helped us to look deep inside what was
shared: poverty and evangelization, media and glo-
balization, family problems are appealing to our Sale-
sian evangelizing and educating apostolic identity.
Fr. Fabio presented these according to the rethinking
experience done by youth ministry with the involve-
ment of the whole congregation.
By Philip Bua
today, from Christ the evangelizer to the
evangelizing Church, the Preventive System:
a spiritual and educative experience, educa-
tive- pastoral community: make of our pres-
ence a family for the young, Salesians educa-
tive-pastoral project: pastoral tool, activities
and works of Salesians youth ministry.
In our Salesians schools, academic re-
sults and professionalism shouldn’t be the
main goal, but moral and Christian values
should be the priority. Salesians should help
young people to enter into the global world
without being consumed. They should be
challenged by the situations young people
are facing.
The best way to handle the youth situation
is to create a welcoming environment where
a sensible approach is adopted towards the
young people, following the preventive sys-
tem of education proposed by Don Bosco
In the afternoon session, the sharing
was on spiritual direction. According to Fr.
The result of the major work as a congregation is
now expressed, in the youth ministry manual, which
is translated into different languages.The manual is
divided into three parts with the following chapters:
to be familiar with life and the culture of the young
Fabio, spiritual direction is a ministry with-
in a ‘faith-full’ life, a sacramental life, an ex-
perience of the body of Christ. In order to
direct others the person must have experi-
ence of Christ. Meditation is where this ex-
perience of Jesus is strengthened. Salesians
shouldn’t live without meditation.
Spiritual direction is helping someone to
live a deeper knowledge and awareness of
God, a discovery of God’s action in one’s life
and how to respond to him. Spiritual Direc-
tion can only be effective if the one who is
directing is going through the same experi-
ence. The meeting with Fr. Fabio was very
enriching and the dialogue and interaction
with him was much appreciated.

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African Child day in
Sierra Leone
By Fr. Sergej Goman
T he youth center indeed is a home for
young people in our community. It has
been a custom for our center to always
celebrate the day of the African child with the
children. June 16th a day the children are in
their typical cultural dresses showing the real
beauty of Africa.
Our youth center starts its preparation for this
day with Animators by holding meetings on
how we want to be with the children to make
them feel that they are really loved. This year,
we celebrated it on the 15th June, 2013 rather
the proper day 16th which happened to be a
Sunday.
Animators started off by registering the regu-
lar boys and girls in the oratory. And this ex-
ercise lasted for one week. And after that, we
invited them for a meeting to tell the activities
that they will be performing on that day and
also tell them that the oratory will be opened
thirty minutes before the normal time and
close beyond the normal schedule for them. The
children were coming every day for interaction
with the Animators for the program lined up
for them. The first activity is to show them the
movie called Sarafina.The movie is trying to
show exactly what happened in Soweto during
the Apathied regime in South Africa.
These are some of the activities children en-
gaged in the oratory with the Salesians and the
Animators in our community:
Brief explanation about the celebration, Pres-
entation of poems about the pain and suffer-
ing of children, Drama and group dance by the
Youth center salamalaque group,Dancing and
miming competition for the children, Crowning of
the miss Don Bosco Youth Center African child for
2013.
This year, the celebration was very much colorful
because there were ten young girls from the nursery
and primary school that contested for the position.
These beautiful queens appeared on stage with three
different dresses: School uniforms, Cultural dress
and Africana dress.
Animators who served in the capacity of judges were
able to bring out result at the end of the appearance.
The queen for this years’ celebration was indeed a
true African child called Sitta Koroma.
She is attending St Augustine primary School in Tin-
tafor. She is in class five and 11 years old. She was
given half bag of rice as a gift from the Salesians of
Don Bosco and the oratory. There were other pric-
es like school bags, tooth pastes and brushes, wall
clocks, school shoes, lights for night studies, soap
etc.given to thirty children. There were over six hun-
dred people including parents were present.
Visit Boscomedia web TV and Radio
bm.sdbafw.org

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YEAR OF FAITH:
A HOLIDAY CAMP
OF FAITH
By Joshua sdb
I t has been a Salesians culture through-
out the world, organizing holiday-camps
for youth and children. This is not just
to make children happy, but to help them
grow spiritually, socially, academically and
for them to have a balanced relationship.
This year, the camp in Lagos has been an
interesting and colorful one, 570 children
were registered and 50 animators were
present to animate them. Children were in-
troduced to different aspects of life such as:
dancing, drama, music, shoe making and
games etc.
It was really a nice adventure, because it
all took place in a shed ( what in Don Bo-
sco’s time was called Pinadi). This experi-
ence demonstrated God’s intervention. A
camp that lacked facilitators/ animators
now had many. Who brought them? We be-
lieve that Mary Help of Christians brought
them and She has always been there for the
Salesians.
The young people of Omole, Lagos were
happy and wished the Holiday-Camp
would continue. The seed Don Bosco has
planted in their hearts makes them yearn
for more Holiday-Camps. The desert
where a river never flowed, a sea began
to flow. The gospel was offered daily with
joy and the pedagogy of kindness.

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Holiday Camp at Ashaiman
and Tema Newtown
By Adoma Bernard sdb
T he summer camp held at Tema New-
town and Don Bosco community in
Ashaiman has been a successful
one. Looking at the theme: Empowering
Human Dignity through Education and
Ecology, many children were empowered
and they went home with useful informa-
tion for their growth.
As part of the preparation for the success
of the camp, a three day workshop was or-
ganized on the 3rd to 5th of August 2013.
The theme of the workshop was: Trained
to Train, educating Animators how to ani-
mate children based on Don Bosco peda-
gogy of educating the young people. All
together, 31 Animators were present, to-
gether with Salesians and Salesian volun-
teers.
The main camp commenced on the
6th to 17th of August. 300 children were
registered in the two camp centers. In
Ashaiman, the camp begins with a morn-
ing talk and prayer session after which all
depart to their various class rooms. The
class ranges from Primary one to Senior
High School one pupils.
After classroom work, there is a
creative art session in the hall
and lunch at 12:00 pm. Games
follows at 1:00 pm.There
children were introduced
to indoor and outdoor
games. The camp ends
everyday at 4:15
pm with clean-
ing, announc-
ing of points
and prayer. A bus
was made available
to convey children to
the camp as well as take
them back. The day ends
with evaluations of activi-
ties.
Towards the end of the camp, par-
ents were invited to witness the ac-
tivities of the camp. There, the children
exhibited their potentials and talents to
their parents.
On the last day, Nestle Ghana limited
came to witness the camp and also brought
other interesting games for the children to
play. obviously the duration was too short
and the Children, requested for an exten-
sion of the Holiday camp.
The children affirmed to their animators
about the success of the camp and how
educative and above all interesting it had
been. The camp ended with a general
evaluation of the whole activities carried
out.

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Sunyani
AFRICATRACK aNd AGCO doNateS tractor aNd
agricUltUral machiNerieS to the SaleSiaNS of
DoN BoSco - WeSt Africa
AFRICATRACK teamed up with AGCO to
make a difference in the lives of young people
in West Africa.
There is a Chinese proverb which AFRICAT-
RACK adopted as their motto: “Give a fish
to a hungry man and he will eat for one day;
give him a boat and a net and teach him how
to fish: he will have something to eat for the
rest of his life”.
The main idea behind this initiative is to mo-
tivate and train young people in machanized
agriculture, thereby improving agriculture
productivity not only in Ghana but in the
whole of Africa.
AFRICATRACK is the main organization that
found donors from different companies for the
tractor and accessories brought to the Sale-
sians in West Africa.
AGCO donated a Massey Ferguson 440-4WD
XTRA - 82 HP tractor while other companies
donated a double axel trailer, a disk plow, a
rotary harrow, a uni-mower, a water pump
and money for the journey from Germany to
Sunyani - Ghana.

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FINAL PROFESSION
The perpetual Profession of Killian KPOGO
and Frederick OKUSU, on the 27 July, 2013 at
St John Bosco Church Golf City Tema- Ghana.
Present at the profession was Most Rev. Fran-
cis A. K. Lodonu, Bishop of Ho Diocese.
It was a moment of great joy coming together after a
long period away from the Province. A moment of listen-
ing and sharing with the sectors of the province at the
Provincial house in Ghana.
The programme gave an horizon on the present situ-
ation of the province. seeing that there was a lot being
done in bringing the gospel to the young. We were chal-
lenged to help spread or facilitate the visions and goals
of the province.
In one of our discussion we had the honour of meeting
the youngsters who shared with us their views on how
the Salesians have been so instrumental in their lives and
how they hope the Salesians contiune to respond to
their needs in all its ramifications.
STRENNA 2014
“Da mihi animas, cetera tolle”
Let us draw upon Don Bosco’s experience,
so we can walk in holiness according to our
specific vocation
“The glory of God and the salvation of souls”
I invite you then, my dear brothers and sisters, all mem-
bers of the Salesian Family, to draw from the wellsprings
of Don Bosco’s spirituality, from his pastoral and educative
charity; it finds its model in Christ the Good Shepherd and
its prayer and programme for life in Don Bosco’s motto “Da
mihi animas, cetera tolle”. Thus we will be able to discover
“Don Bosco the mystic”, whose spiritual experience lies at
the basis of our way of being today, our Salesian spirituality
according to the different vocations which take their inspi-
ration from it.

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Ibadan
Annual
Retreat
T he annual retreat in Ibadan was successfully
concluded on the 13th of July. It ws a deep mo-
ment of reflection led by an experienced Salesian
By Bro. Paolo Vaschetto
who was able to share his understanding of our specif-
ic religious life in the Church. The whole group of the
participants is portrayed in this picture while some
volunteers for the Holiday camp were already around
to prepare with us this very interesting experience.
Fr. George Chalissery, Provincial of ZMB Prov-
ince, our highly esteemed preacher, deserves all our
gratitude expressed by the joy of our “Oga” Victor.
Fr. George Crisafulli, AFW Provincial, spent
few moments with the youth of the Oratory
and gave us a memorable “goodnight” about
the project of Street Children in Sierra Leone.
He showed a big concern from his heart for
all the exploited and abused children in West
Africa, an appeal that should be heard by the
whole society we are living in. Let us give him
all the support he needs to develop this com-
mendable effort to work for the poorest among
the poor.
Social sport Academy project in lungi
SIERRA LEONE
Objective: create opportunities through education and
employment of young people in Lungi, Sierra Leone.
Relevance: The ten years long devastating Rebel-War
in Sierra Leone still remains to show its economic effect on
the lives of the people.
People in Lungi are mainly involved in fishing and peti-
trading for their livelihood (survival).They encourage their
school going children to join in their business immediately
after school and fully in business during the weekends to
enable them secure funds for school fees and other basic
needs. This gives no opportunity for extra curricular ac-
tivities and studying time for students.

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Priestly Ordination 2013
First Salesian priests from Sierra Leone were or-
dained by Rt. Rev. Bishop Charles Allieu Mathew
Campbell, Bishop of Bo Diocese, at the St. Fran-
cis Xavier Cathedral in Bo, Sierra Leone on 20th July,
2013. In his homily at the ordination, Bishop Camp-
bell extended his blessings to the newly ordained, their
T he Most Rev. Dr. Alfred Adewale Martins,
Archbishop of Lagos, ordained Deacons
Airoboman Raphael, and Ajah Emmanuel,
At the Catholic Church of the Holy Spirit Omole
Estate Phase 1, Ikeja - Lagos. The Bishop com-
mended the work of Salesians for the youth of
the parish and the Archdiocese of Lagos.
In his homily, the bishop said, that it was an
honour for the families of the newly ordained
Priests who ware chosen among them to serve
the Church. It is not a loss to the family but
they are now fathers of the faith and they be-
long to a bigger family. Therefore, they need
a big space now to serve the Church, families
should let them go, they are gift to the Church
and shouldn’t expect them to participate in all
the activities of the family…
parents and well wishers. He also called on the young
people present on the occasion to be attentive to the call
OrdOinnaittsiohna2013
of God. He exhorted the new priests to, “Listen to the
Word of God, preach what you hear and practise what
you preach.”
Fr. Jorge, Provincial, thanked God for having allowed
the Charism of Don Bosco to take definitive root in Si-
erra Leone after twenty eight years of Salesian presence
in the country. He also thanked the parents of the newly
ordained and reminded them that by, “Giving your Sons
to God and to the service of the Church, you lose nothing
but gain everything”. To the young people of the Sale-
sian Youth Movement, he said, “Follow the example of
the new priests, answer your call and follow the Lord
joyfully.” He exhorted the new priests to, “Be humble,
be joyful and be holy.
Visit the website of the province for more
information- www.sdbafw.org
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