Joseph reflects on successful Young Lasallian symposium
Joseph Degabriele
The International Symposium of Young Lasallians took place at the Generalate in Rome between November 13th and 20th, comprising over 30 delegates representing all the Districts from all Lasallian regions.
The District of Ireland, Great Britain and Malta was represented by Joseph Degabriele who reflects on a very successful gathering.
The programme included a variety of sessions with the majority being working group sessions or sessions in the Aula Magna together with the Young Brothers, which happened to be having their Young Brothers Assembly during the same week.
The working group sessions offered their fair share of intensive work and challenges, not only through language barriers but also to come up with steps of achieving the area of priority appointed – which steps have to be applicable in every region, which as we already know have different cultures and realities.
The areas of priority were Culture of Vocations, Networking & Communication, Service with the Poor and Sustainable Organisation Growth. These were chosen from phase 1 of the Symposium, in which Jason Poole gave indispensable input and on which I continued to assist with my representation of the District during the second phase in Rome.
During the sessions, I had the honour to share opinions, realities and experiences from the district as well as have the space to learn new ways of taking the Young Lasallian Movement forward. The Symposium served to take our District’s work and merge it with the network and leave our mark on the bigger picture of the YL Movement.
Without any doubt, a pivotal point of the Symposium were the evening socials which gave space for networking and for one to build bridges for possible collaborations with other districts and regions. Realising that one is contributing to something so grand was a personal satisfaction, which pursued to grow when I saw similar areas of priority come up again in Mission Assemblies, Young Brothers’ Assemblies and the General Chapter.
Our District’s Young Lasallians Movement has achieved a lot and the YL Council is working hard to strengthen all that is achieved and working harder to start new initiatives, so here I would like to extend an invite to anyone reading who has ideas for the Young Lasallian Movement to come forward and share with us.
The steps mentioned above will be discussed with the General Council and then taken forward to fruition – this means that the work is not ready, on the contrary the real work is only starting.
