During their stay within the Don Bosco Hotel School in Sihanoukville, the Salesians Cooperators of the East Asia - Oceania Region experienced communion and fraternity. Personal attention, interaction with students and staff, continuous involvement of the 6 SDBs of the local community and their 8 lay missionary volunteers will be not forgotten back in their provinces.
All participants said they were enriched by a new awareness about the importance and urgent need of inspiring quality formation. Maybe their first fruit is this strong conviction and it is already a promising treasure.
Among the fruits harvested, all the people convened on the need for formation that communicates not only ‘knowledge of Salesianity’, but shares the joy of living the spirit of Don Bosco. It grows through attraction, communication and sharing, made fruitful through the working of the Holy Spirit according to each of the personal vocation growth stages.
The future 'Dreams' about formation in each province were shared on Day 3 (May 26), summarized by Fr Suphot (THA - EAO regional delegate ASC) and digested and clarified during focused reflection on Day 4 (May 27) with the moderation of the EAO Regional Councilor, Fr Klement. Four emerging 'RESOLUTION - ACTION PLAN POINTS' strike out thanks to their simplicity and convergence:
VOCATION: the need for young Salesian Cooperators is strong in each province, thus the need to listen and accompany youth, to know their needs and their points of attraction, (re: vocations).
FORMATION: Formation team at the province level, plus reflection, translations, training of formators and production of common formation modules and programs, with new formators needed, formation of Salesian cooperators regarding the basics of social communication (SNS, website, or FB administration).
SOCIAL COMMUNICATION: Province level website (so far only CIN-FIN-KOR) has one, or province's official FB pages, plus foster effective internal communication among the centers (province) and external communication (for the young, Salesian Family members).
MISSION: Family ministry (today we can't imagine youth ministry without family involvement) and working for the margninalized and poor young people - who are saving the Salesian Cooperators!
As a matter of fact, there are 350 SDB and FMA religious communities but only 126 Local Salesian Cooperator Centres in the whole EAO region (2500 ASC members with promise and few more hundreds of Aspirants). Fr Klement invited everyone to pray that the remaining 226 SDB and FMA communities may be able to start their own Salesian Cooperators centre in the near future.
