MONGOLIA: SALESIANS READY TO TAKE UP NEW TERRITORY
ROME: 17th August -- According to information provided recently to 'austraLasia' by Fr. John Ty, former Provincial of Vietnam (the Salesian Province responsible for the new mission in Mongolia), the Salesians have been offered their own territory in Mongolia by the Apostolic Prefecture of the Church in that country and with Government encouragement and assistance - to the extent of providing some 7 acres of land in the city of Darhan to the north of the capital Ulaan Baatar (or Ulan Bator). The Salesians in Mongolia hope to open their new centre in 2004.
The Salesians have been just a handful of years in Ulan Bator, where a multinational Salesian community (Vietnamese, Filipino, Czech...) operates an Oratory, work for streetkids, a school and professional training. The need for an area where Salesians can strike out in their own right, particularly with work for street kids, has been recognized by the small Church of Mongolia. Indeed, there are perhaps as few as 150 Catholics in the country, but the post-communist era has seen Mongolia turn to missionary development possibilities with some eagerness. Mongolia, surprisingly, has an urbanised population (63% live in urban areas), a developing economy, and young people are often the victims of a combination of rural poverty and urban development.
Mongolia is a country of some 1,565,000 sq kms and a population of 2,7000,000. Formerly a Buddhist stronghold and theocracy, the Communist years (largely aligned with the Soviet Union) saw a decrease in the number of Buddhist monks from a figure of some 100,000 in 1924 to a mere 110 in 1990. The western region of Mongolia has a strong Muslim influence as well.
