austraLasia 1232
Japan's Salesians push forward with cultural outreach
TOKYO: 27th August -- This time working with Japanese-Filipino youth, the Salesians have justs completed a four day summer camp for 34 participants. The summer bi or multi cultural camps were the brainchild of Fr John Sakai, a Japanese Salesian fully fluent in English (studied theology in Manila) with his theology classmates and student leaders from Himonya parish and Chofu. The bi-cultural camps were set up in cooperation with the Catholic Tokyo International Centre (CTIC), the archdiocesan pastoral and crisis centre for foreigners, and the Japanese-Filipino Youth Educational Program (JFYEP) of Kasai Church.
Armed with such impressive acronyms, the CTIC-JFYEP-SDB venture has been a great success! This year they set out to form youth leaders as an important strategy for the future. The idea is to to bring these young leaders onside in the difficult but important task of catechesis for youngsters who are conversant with Japanese but often forgetful or plain ignorant of English, Tagalog and the like. The problem begins when the youngsters accompany their parents to liturgies in those languages and are bored stiff by the experience. The other result is that because they attend Sunday Mass with their parents, they miss out on the regular Japanese Sunday school classes.
Multiculturalism is a fine banner in modern democratic societies, but underneath, as most societies know, the not-fully-x kids always get a hard time from their peers. It is no different for children of Filipino, Brazilian, Vietnamese.... parentage in Japan. The hope is that the newly formed youth leaders can help ease this situation in a variety of ways, and perhaps even conduct an oratory-type situation at weekends.
There are now six Salesians in the Province working officially and full-time in the multicultural apostolate, a move that was reinforced at the last Provincial Chapter: Fr Evaristo Higa for Brazilians or for Nikeeis from Brazil, Fr Angelo Yamamouchi for Spanish-speaking migrants, Fr Michael Lap for Vietnamese, Fr Umberto Cavaliere for South Americans generally, Fr Nagasawa, as a parish priest for both Japanese and non-Japanese in his parish. Fr Bob Zarate has recently joined the CTIC as a staffer specifically for youth-oriented situations and cases.
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Japan's Salesians push forward with cultural outreach
TOKYO: 27th August -- This time working with Japanese-Filipino youth, the Salesians have justs completed a four day summer camp for 34 participants. The summer bi or multi cultural camps were the brainchild of Fr John Sakai, a Japanese Salesian fully fluent in English (studied theology in Manila) with his theology classmates and student leaders from Himonya parish and Chofu. The bi-cultural camps were set up in cooperation with the Catholic Tokyo International Centre (CTIC), the archdiocesan pastoral and crisis centre for foreigners, and the Japanese-Filipino Youth Educational Program (JFYEP) of Kasai Church.
Armed with such impressive acronyms, the CTIC-JFYEP-SDB venture has been a great success! This year they set out to form youth leaders as an important strategy for the future. The idea is to to bring these young leaders onside in the difficult but important task of catechesis for youngsters who are conversant with Japanese but often forgetful or plain ignorant of English, Tagalog and the like. The problem begins when the youngsters accompany their parents to liturgies in those languages and are bored stiff by the experience. The other result is that because they attend Sunday Mass with their parents, they miss out on the regular Japanese Sunday school classes.
Multiculturalism is a fine banner in modern democratic societies, but underneath, as most societies know, the not-fully-x kids always get a hard time from their peers. It is no different for children of Filipino, Brazilian, Vietnamese.... parentage in Japan. The hope is that the newly formed youth leaders can help ease this situation in a variety of ways, and perhaps even conduct an oratory-type situation at weekends.
There are now six Salesians in the Province working officially and full-time in the multicultural apostolate, a move that was reinforced at the last Provincial Chapter: Fr Evaristo Higa for Brazilians or for Nikeeis from Brazil, Fr Angelo Yamamouchi for Spanish-speaking migrants, Fr Michael Lap for Vietnamese, Fr Umberto Cavaliere for South Americans generally, Fr Nagasawa, as a parish priest for both Japanese and non-Japanese in his parish. Fr Bob Zarate has recently joined the CTIC as a staffer specifically for youth-oriented situations and cases.
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