Various Salesians, Daughters if Mary Help of Christians and co-workers from Salesian  centres  were present at the Congress some as delegates in an official capacity. Fr Peter Gonsalves, lecturer in the Faculty of Social Communication at the Salesian Pontifical University was the official representative of the Salesian Congregation at the Chiang Mai Assembly.

As well as Fr Gonsalves, another significant Salesian figure in the programme of the Congress was  Fr Thomas Kunnel, who for many years has been working in the Salesian missions in Kenya, in the  “East Africa” Province. Until a short time ago, Fr Kunnel was the director of BEAMS, a multimedia production group he has formed over the years in Nairobi. He spoke on the subject "Developing media education around the world".  Another venture coming from his leadership has been a re-presentation for the African context of the `Shepherds for an Information Age` Salesian formation handbook for media education.
Fr. George Plathottam SDB (Representative of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of India) had the opportunity to speak about how the Salesian Formation plan for Social Communications was being redesigned for the training of seminarians in India ¬ a response to the invitation of the Bishops of India.

Another speaker, a `local` in the sense that he is a Cambodian working closely with the Salesians was Kim Sean, Director of the Social Communication section at Don Bosco Sihanoukville, and a member of the Cambodian Delegation of the Catholic Church to the Congress.
 Kim wrote: "I am doing my best, especially showing our social communication section in Sihanoukville.  I trust in the blessing of God to do the best for our project, for Don Bosco and for the Cambodian Catholic Church.  I did two video clips with my group.  I am very happy with my group - they come from five different countries, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, India and Cambodia".

He went on to say "I think also about the Don Bosco anniversary of the 150 years of the Salesians. I will find a good place to mention it here in Chiang Mai.  I am getting a lot of experience in Thailand.  The Social Communication area is very open to the Catholic Church".

Published 22/10/2009