Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bangkok (Agenzia Fides) – Don Bosco Home, located in the Diocese of Chiang Mai, is finally a reality. The Salesians of Thailand have officially opened the multi-purpose pastoral center for youth from ethnic minority groups that live in the mountainous region, including from the Pagayor, Arkha, Yao, Lahoo, Hmong tribes.
Don Bosco Home is a center for boys meant to help teenagers from hill tribes and ethnic groups in Thailand to receive the opportunity to continue their education in a 3-year career training program.
Thanks to the human and spiritual education they receive, the boys will be better prepared to face their lives, support the weight of their family, become aware of their dignity within society, and be strengthened in their faith.
Don Bosco Home can offer career training for 80 boys and Salesian vocation training for 20 boys (open for students of Grades 7-9). There are now 70 teenagers studying for certificate of profession and 7 students of Grade 7 are receiving Salesian vocation training (beginning for the first year). It has 3 dormitories for boys (each unit can accommodate 20-25 persons), 3 shower and toilet buildings, 2 laundry buildings, one dining and kitchen building, one library, one study room, one football field, one basketball field, a chapel, and other facilities.
The youth of the local indigenous tribe have readily accepted this possibility given them by the Salesians. They are encouraged to mature physically, intellectually, and morally, as integral persons. They are educated to become “good Christians,” according to the “preventative system” of Don Bosco.
Bishop Francis Xavier Vira Arpondratana of Chiang Mai, has expressed his gratitude to the Salesians for having created the center, which will seek to show the closeness of the local Church to the ethnic minorities and will be a valid instrument of evangelization of the tribal peoples, often marginalized from Thai society. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 22/7/2009)
