austraLasia 1437
'Many islands - what we need are a few more bridges': YM delegates grope forward
CHEUNG CHAU HK: 8th February 2006 -- It was just one line amongst many. Extracting the key ideas from a set of minutes about seven hours you weren't at is like playing Chinese pick up sticks with noodles. But, many islands - need more bridges might even beat the frogs for best image of the week. Nine provinces and a delegation, different in every way imaginable; a mixture of delegates and provincials with a vice provincial or two thrown in; a number of provinces physically comprising many islands, more than one culture and not too many bridges. It was bound to be an interesting day!
The Youth Ministry Delegates were joined today by the Provincials, with the exception of Vietnam, still awaiting visas. Fr Dominic Sequeira pulled together the threads from three years ago in Lysterfield, and from the past two days and summed up the surveyed YM model, planning mentality and animation of youth ministry in the region. On a plus and minus chart there are more pluses, but the difficulties have clarified themselves basically into the following: there are not a lot of bridges between delegate and communities, the concept of 'animation' is not necessarily well understood, the EPC is core to it all and that is not always well formed, and there needs to be coordination and animation at provincial level.
A workshop on how best to facilitate the role of the YM delegate elicited the following: AUL needs to look at how to better link the two YM bodies they have, PAT (Pastoral Animation Team) which tends more to the charismatic element in YM and SPAA (Salesian Principals Association of Australia) which looks at a more professional side of Salesian school operation, and therein lies the challenge, to 'marry' these two contributions; CIN notes the huge change in its situation over 20 years and the consequent need to analyse the model of YM animation in place, through awareness-raising of the Preventive System, looking at the role of competence - skill and knowledge, and collaboration in teamwork and community. A varied range of ideas came forward to the general assembly. Here, one had a sense of the 'many islands' looking for 'bridges'. Is SEPP in fact more of a Latin American concept not all that successful in an Asian context, one group wondered? In some ways there were more questions than answers, but again, as in previous days, the objective reader not caught up the tangle of argument could detect a clear thread or two; the delegate is not alone....every Salesian is a youth minister and nor can it be reduced to a 'dicastero'. Youth ministry is our mission and raison d'etre.
The Provinces put forward some tentative priorities for the next few years, again each reflecting differences, but with some common elements: THA - the move to a focus on youth at risk and developing SEPP; CIN - translating the 'simplified model' into Chinese and developing SEPP; PNG-SI - developing the journey of faith of young people; FIN - YM and EPC; AUL - the two animation bodies to deepen their relationship for development of all dimensions, and the beginning of the lay missionary movement in the province; FIS - revise SEPP and strengthen SYM; KOR - help communities with the pastoral model and SEPP; ITM - SEPP and a good YM team; GIA - establish a context where YM delegate can enter all the works and be accepted, improve pastoral activities to youth at province level.
The meeting concluded with some solid effort to find real bridges in a culturally disparate region. Sharing through email-website-exchange of materials was an obvious one. The Region's vision and mission statement foresees common projects - WYD Sydney 2008 seems a clear opportunity, including a Salesian meeting for world participants. AUL will tackle the 'housing' for this one. There is also the AYD (Asian Youth Day) this year- CIN looking after this one.
In the end, many provinces would agree with a closing comment by the CIN provincial, if any or all of the above is to really matter in the future: "I think we need to promote vocations in our Province!"
___________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
'Many islands - what we need are a few more bridges': YM delegates grope forward
CHEUNG CHAU HK: 8th February 2006 -- It was just one line amongst many. Extracting the key ideas from a set of minutes about seven hours you weren't at is like playing Chinese pick up sticks with noodles. But, many islands - need more bridges might even beat the frogs for best image of the week. Nine provinces and a delegation, different in every way imaginable; a mixture of delegates and provincials with a vice provincial or two thrown in; a number of provinces physically comprising many islands, more than one culture and not too many bridges. It was bound to be an interesting day!
The Youth Ministry Delegates were joined today by the Provincials, with the exception of Vietnam, still awaiting visas. Fr Dominic Sequeira pulled together the threads from three years ago in Lysterfield, and from the past two days and summed up the surveyed YM model, planning mentality and animation of youth ministry in the region. On a plus and minus chart there are more pluses, but the difficulties have clarified themselves basically into the following: there are not a lot of bridges between delegate and communities, the concept of 'animation' is not necessarily well understood, the EPC is core to it all and that is not always well formed, and there needs to be coordination and animation at provincial level.
A workshop on how best to facilitate the role of the YM delegate elicited the following: AUL needs to look at how to better link the two YM bodies they have, PAT (Pastoral Animation Team) which tends more to the charismatic element in YM and SPAA (Salesian Principals Association of Australia) which looks at a more professional side of Salesian school operation, and therein lies the challenge, to 'marry' these two contributions; CIN notes the huge change in its situation over 20 years and the consequent need to analyse the model of YM animation in place, through awareness-raising of the Preventive System, looking at the role of competence - skill and knowledge, and collaboration in teamwork and community. A varied range of ideas came forward to the general assembly. Here, one had a sense of the 'many islands' looking for 'bridges'. Is SEPP in fact more of a Latin American concept not all that successful in an Asian context, one group wondered? In some ways there were more questions than answers, but again, as in previous days, the objective reader not caught up the tangle of argument could detect a clear thread or two; the delegate is not alone....every Salesian is a youth minister and nor can it be reduced to a 'dicastero'. Youth ministry is our mission and raison d'etre.
The Provinces put forward some tentative priorities for the next few years, again each reflecting differences, but with some common elements: THA - the move to a focus on youth at risk and developing SEPP; CIN - translating the 'simplified model' into Chinese and developing SEPP; PNG-SI - developing the journey of faith of young people; FIN - YM and EPC; AUL - the two animation bodies to deepen their relationship for development of all dimensions, and the beginning of the lay missionary movement in the province; FIS - revise SEPP and strengthen SYM; KOR - help communities with the pastoral model and SEPP; ITM - SEPP and a good YM team; GIA - establish a context where YM delegate can enter all the works and be accepted, improve pastoral activities to youth at province level.
The meeting concluded with some solid effort to find real bridges in a culturally disparate region. Sharing through email-website-exchange of materials was an obvious one. The Region's vision and mission statement foresees common projects - WYD Sydney 2008 seems a clear opportunity, including a Salesian meeting for world participants. AUL will tackle the 'housing' for this one. There is also the AYD (Asian Youth Day) this year- CIN looking after this one.
In the end, many provinces would agree with a closing comment by the CIN provincial, if any or all of the above is to really matter in the future: "I think we need to promote vocations in our Province!"
___________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
