Kokopo, East New Britain, PNG, 26 March 2023 -- “As the Yeast: Rise a Community Champion”. This was the theme of the community days’ celebration at Don Bosco Technical Secondary School Kokopo.
The celebration began with the Holy Eucharist in the school gym on Thursday 16 March 2023. The main celebrant of the Holy Eucharist was Fr. Moise Paluku, SDB, Rector of the School. In his homily, Fr Moise encouraged the students and the staff to embrace the value of community if one wants to be a champion in life. Emphasising the theme, he said that the marches and the war cries that the students are practising for the community day itself will have no meaning if there was only one person shouting and responding. It takes a group of students or a community to synchronise the shouting to make a good presentation for the team. He said that the Gospel reading for the day was fitting for the theme of the community days. He quoted Lk 11: 17, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house.” He said that any division in the community is always the work of the evil one and not from God. After the homily, there was the induction of youth group leaders and class officers for the year 2023.
The celebration continued the following day, 17 March 2023, with field and track events. The games began with the opening prayer led by Fr. Joseph Thanh, SDB, then the singing of the Alma Mater song, and afterwards the recitation of the school Vision Mission. After the recitation of the Vision-Mission, there was the lighting of the torch led by Fr. Moise, Rector together with the team captains of the four house colours - the Blue Mafias, the Green Ninja, the Red Crusaders, and the Yellow Titans. After the lighting of the torch, the four teams presented their creative march-past and war cries in front of the judges and other team colours. Then followed the field and track events that began at around 9 o’clock in the morning until 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Parents from the neighbouring communities also came to see the students taking part in the different fields and track events of the students. The Red Crusaders were the overall winner of the games. They were awarded the Rectors shield.
