In a span of 18 months, Jesuit Communications (JesCom) Vietnam trained nearly 300 young Vietnamese Catholics in media literacy through their Media Education Project.
Inspired by the CommLab programme of SIGNIS, the project, which was started by Fr Nguyen Van Yen SJ and CommLab programme alumnus Vi Cao, aimed at providing media skills and knowledge to young people and to connect them as a network from which they could find spiritual and practical support.
A total of 22 courses have been conducted for 286 young Catholics across the country since March 2017. The alumni network is coordinated by members empowered by the JesCom committee in Vietnam.
On September 29, the programme officially ended with an evaluation workshop. Twenty-two participants representing the 22 courses shared their experiences and motivations along with their vision for a future project that echoes the success of the programme.
“Our workshop invitation received a prompt response from youth groups, parishes, dioceses and individuals. However, we must not only ask what JesCom Vietnam can do for us, but also what we have to offer to the church through communications and JesCom,” said Deputy Head of JesCom Vietnam Brother Thien Kinh SJ.
The evaluation sought to improve the programme further by asking the participants to identify gaps in human resource allocation, decision-making processes, training content, network management and financial resources.
At the end of the workshop, Vo Quoc Vuong, an alumnus from the 14th training course in the Vinh Province said: “There are 24 members of our course and after a year, we still keep in touch with each other. We connect with each other beyond the skills we shared, we perform online evaluation every day and we do mission trips even though our financial support is limited and most of us are still students. As millennials, traveling to extremely poor areas and discovering the real struggle of children without basic needs such as clothes, food or school materials, and seeing a dedicated parish priest who has to run back and forth between chapels that are 70 kilometres apart made us burst into tears. We found the true reason for our mission as communicators.”
The Media Education Project will be renewed with improvements to better empower the youth with adequate communication tools.
Family, friends and members of religious communities gathered on the bright morning of June 8 to witness the diaconate ordination of Joseph Dang Do Nhan SJ by Most Rev John B Shan-Chuan Hung SVD, Archbishop of Taipei. The Mass was held at St Robert Bellarmine Chapel of Fu Jen Faculty of Theology of St Robert Bellarmine, New Taipei City.
