Auckland, New Zealand, 8 July 2017 -- The history of the Don Bosco Youth of St Paul’s Massey & Ranui, and St Mary’s Avondale Youth started in a dream where a man said: “You will have to win these friends of yours not with blows, but with gentleness and kindness. So, begin right now to show them that sin is ugly and virtue beautiful." With this, John Bosco dedicated his whole life on street and juvenile kids to make their future bright, and therefore created the work of ‘Salesians of Don Bosco’.
For the New Zealand Don Bosco Youth and St Mary’s Avondale, our first Don Bosco camp was in Australia in the Salesian College Sunbury in Victoria, Melbourne in 2015. This was an experience we couldn’t forget and felt inspired to try and establish a Camp for New Zealand.
With the help and support of our Parents as well as our Parish priests Fr Aleki Piula SDB and Fr Mathew Vadakkevettuvazhiyil SDB we were able to have our very first 'Kiwi Bosco Camp'.
With a few months of meetings we were able to put our plans into reality and held Kiwi Bosco on Friday 7th July and Saturday 8th July 2017 at St Paul’s Primary School in Massey, Auckland.
Friday night, was filled with lots of activities, which helped the oratory groups bond together, to work as a team and to get to know one another. Some of the activities included Riff off, human bingo, Cat and Mouse and so much more.
These activities lightened the mood and had everyone participating. As the night continued RC (one of the youth leaders) gave a very insightful presentation as to why and how Don Bosco was introduced to their youth and what his life was about. We ended off the night with a Praise and Worship to glorify his Holy Name and a reflection time before lights out.
Our Saturday morning began with a bit of a Zumba work out and breakfast afterwards. This was followed by an inspirational talk by one of our leaders (Patricia) and activities/workshops based around our theme.
Amazing Race being one of the activities where each group were able to work together as a team and making each other stronger by communicating and supporting each other during each game. Because our theme was FAMILY, the activities and workshops that were included in our Kiwi Bosco camp, were all based around it. We each listened to each other's thoughts of Family, Love and Life during the workshop.
As leaders, we wanted the youth to show how they feel about these words and how they lead to one another. As each group acted out different scenarios about their views in these three words (love, life and family), we recognized their importance and we acknowledge the fact that your LIFE is not complete without a FAMILY and Family is meaningless without LOVE.
We have always seen the OzBosco Camps to be an internationally held event with hundreds of attendees and countless organisers. Holding something similar to our Massey and Avondale Parishes did seem farfetched and unlikely for us leaders at first. However, as Father Aleki proposes the idea and we began putting our thoughts together, Kiwi Bosco 2017 was something we all saw as a fun and exciting opportunity we all eagerly looked forward to. Putting together a camp like this was a new experience which took months of planning and preparation, helping build our anticipation to the final day. This was especially evident about a week before the camp as we began to see it come together.
On the day of the camp, we were all filled with enthusiasm as to what the turnout will be. We were pleased to see the result of our hard work as the participants enjoyed the workshops, activities, camaraderie and games.
Although we came as separate youths and camp was only on for a short period of days, it felt like we spent weeks with each other and built the unbreakable relationship that we all walked away as brothers and sisters in Christ. With Jesus at the centre of it all from the beginning till the very end we couldn't leave without giving glory and praise back to him for an unforgettable camp, so we ended it off with Mass celebrated by Fr Aleki Piula SDB. It was a success, we did New Zealand's first ever Kiwi Bosco 2017. We definitely cannot wait for what the future holds for our Salesian family and what more of Don Bosco's teachings we get to share with our young people, because through God all things are possible.
