austraLasia #3110
Japan-Don
Bosco Samoa Cooperation:
'language of love' provides new electronics workshop
APIA: 4 August
2012 -- “This new electronics workshop at Don Bosco
Technical
Centre Alafua provides the basis for improving the technical
capacity
of the young people of Samoa”, said his Excellency, Mr Hideto
Mitamura,
the Japanese Ambassador to Samoa at the official blessing and
opening
of the recently completed facility on 2 August. Mr Mitamura
was joined
by other dignitaries including the Prime Minister of Samoa,
the
Honourable Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi and the
Director of
Catholic Education, Aeau Chris Hazelman to celebrate a project
that
resulted from initiative of one man.
Mr Kuniaki Suzuki, a volunteer with the Japanese International
Cooperation Agency (JICA) has spent the past two years working
at Don
Bosco Alafua, primarily teaching electronics out of a
converted
classroom and without a proper laboratory or workshop and
without the
necessary furniture or equipment. Mr Suzuki is a man of vast
professional experience and technical expertise and capacity
to love.
In his time at Don Bosco he has grown to love the school, the
teachers
and the boys, and they have returned that love in abundance.
He is also
a man with an extraordinary vision. He dreamt of establishing
a proper
electronics and electrics facility to improve the facilities
and the
educational outcomes of the students. Mr Suzuki set about
petitioning
the Japanese Embassy in New Zealand for the funds to realise
his
project.
He and Sr Monika Vaipuna RNDM, the Principal of Don Bosco,
undertook
the planning application process in collaboration with various
agencies
and officials. Mr Suzuki refused to allow language problems,
and the
obvious difficulties and frustrations that caused, to distract
him from
his primary purpose: a proper workshop for his boys. The
Rector of the
Alafua Community, Fr Nicholas Castelyns SDB, who described the
project
as a work of love, alluded to these language difficulties in
his prayer
of blessing:
We thank you for Mr Suzuki, the man with the dream, and for
all those
who helped to make this dream come true. We thank you for
Sister
Monika, who supported him regardless of problems of language
communication. It has shown us that in spite of the difference
of
languages, the language of love unites us all.
The language of love conquers all and after countless hours of
dealing
with a multitude of bureaucracies his application for funding
was
approved and now his dream has become a reality: the
Government and the
People of Japan would fund the materials for the project, with
the
labour to be paid by local sources. The construction of the
electronics
thus became a project that involved the whole parent
community, who
undertook a series of fundraising activities to generate the
funds for
the school to be able to make its contribution to the project.
The Prime Minister offered a vote of thanks to the people and
government of Japan for their ongoing support for Samoa.
“Neither Japan
nor Samoa is rich in natural resources”, said the Prime
Minister, “Yet
Japan has shown the world how to utilise the resources of its
people,
who have been able to take natural products from all over the
world,
transform them and then sell them to the countries that
supplied the
original raw materials. Samoa’s greatest resource is its
people. We are
rich in man-power. This facility assists in enabling us to
develop the
technical capacity of our people and contributes towards the
development of the nation.”
The students provided first rate entertainment for the
visitors and
dignitaries with a superb display of singing and dancing. The
festivities concluded in typically Salesian and typically
Samoan style
with guests, students and staff enjoying food and
refreshments.