The 'Servitor Pacis' award comes via an organisation that works under the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations. One annual 'Path to Peace' award is bestowed annually upon a single individual. This year it goes to Carlos Menem, President of Argentina. Previous recipients have been Cory Aquino and Lech Walesa.

Since 1994, the Path to Peace Foundation has offered several 'Servitores Pacis' awards to recognise what it describes as 'that magnificent legion of often unsung heroes, men and women in the most remote fields, who literally spend their lives with the only purpose and desire to be where the need is greater, where the wounds of humanity are festering and the pain unending'. Without the cooperation and commitment of these tremendous witnesses, no organisation, government or even the Church, could possibly accomplish their ambitious goals of assisting members of the human family in great need. To these, who by the sweat of their brow and with immense love in their hearts, who unflinchingly serve the poorest of the poor, oftentimes in the midst of utmost desolation, go our deepest and most profound gratitude and appreciation.

It is worth noting that this is in fact the third time in the history of the award that it has been received by a Salesian work. The other Salesians were:

Roberto Panetto, SDB, 44, Italian, came to Thailand in 1972. As an expert technician and mechanic he dedicated his life to serving poor youth. When in 1987 the Jesuit Refugee Service invited the Salesians to work among the Cambodian refugees in the refugee camps, Brother Roberto was the first to volunteer. His superiors entrusted Brother and another Salesian to coordinate this ministry. With the aid of the United Nations and approximately twenty past-pupils from Salesian schools, they instituted five vocational centres, the first being opened in a Khmer Rouge camp. The project proved to be successful, enabling the refugees, upon their return to Cambodia, to bring with them the spirit of Don Bosco along with their newly acquired skills.

John Visser, SDB, 62, from the Netherlands, arrived in Thailand as a missionary in 1957. His life's passion and dedication has been to work exclusively for the poor. To this end, was actively involved in working in vocational schools for poor and abandoned youth, so that they might gain an education and develop skills, in order to provide for themselves now and in the future. He was of great help in finding the financial resources necessary to initiate and operate these tuition-free school. When in 1990 the Salesians were asked to assist the poor, orphaned and abandoned youth of Cambodia, it was Fr. John who was considered as the ideal person to create a Don Bosco Foundation in Cambodia. The choice was the right one, as he was instrumental in developing a vocational centre for 200 young men, and by offering financial assistance providing many with food and basic education. His fruitful work became a model for non-governmental organisations.

And now Fr. Peter Newbery SDB He is typical of so many Salesians in different parts of the world. He is enthusiastic, wildly energetic, and totally devoted to the children of the street. He began his Salesian life in England. In his youthful enthusiasm he volunteered to go to Hong Kong. He absorbed the spirit of his new country and learnt the language (Cantonese), which he speaks fluently. He became qualified in psychology and theology. He came back to England to be ordained at Shrigley in 1975. Returning as a priest to Hong Kong he spent ten valuable years as senior prison chaplain. He will remind you that Don Bosco was a prison chaplain.

He describes the way his present work developed as follows:

Between 1986-87, there was a 40% increase in the number of children between the ages of 10 and 16 reported to the police as missing. This brought the total number per year to almost 3,500 for both boys and girls. The number has remained approximately the same each year since then. There is evidence that the reported cases are only the tip of the iceberg. 

A survey conducted by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups in 1989 found that only one runaway in five is reported to the police. This would suggest that a more accurate figure would be closer to 20,000 per year. More than half of the cases reported to the police are girls. Workers in the field, however, have consistently reported that they deal with far more boys than girls. At the same time throughout 1986-87 the Hong Kong Council of Social Service carried out a territory-wide research project to study the future development of Youth Work in Hong Kong. The conclusion of the research was that some form of “crisis intervention” service was needed to deal with the explosion of “street kids.” Several existing agencies proposed services but most of the funding for these agencies came from Government sources and Government did not wish to fund this kind of project. Consequently none of these agencies were able to put their proposals into operation.

In 1990, Fr. John Baptist Zen SDB, who had recently taken up the post of Provincial, asked me to submit a written proposal for some kind of crisis intervention service for young people in Hong Kong. He then appointed me to set up and run such a service. This was to be the first such youth service of its kind in Hong Kong.

Our thinking was based on the principle that marginal youth are not yet involved in delinquency. However, if they stay on the street for any length of time they must become involved in petty crime and ultimately join triad societies simply to survive. Since they are initially not involved in criminal activity, they will not have come to the attention of the police or social workers. We concluded therefore, that if we did not actually go out and look for them, we would never find them.

In the summer of 1992 we began experimenting with an “outreaching program”. That is to say, we began to take a pro-active approach in going out on the streets looking for these young people who would not or could not go home. Our experience showed that our thinking had been correct. In March 1993 we employed staff to do this on a full time basis.

Our social workers search the streets all night for runaways and other youngsters at risk and offer them shelter. Currently, each month, they deal with between 400 and 600 cases on the street. They are able to bring back about 10% of these cases to our residential centres. To date, the average age of the runaways we take in at Youth Outreach is 13 years old. However, the youngest runaway we have had at Youth Outreach was 7 years old.

We take youngsters straight off the streets before they can become the victims of the triads, the pimps and the drug pushers. We also provide a 24-hour emergency hotline for young people in trouble and for worried parents. To date, this is the only 24-hour hotline available for young people in Hong Kong.

After our social workers have made initial contact with the young runaways during the night they either take them directly home or bring them back to our counselling centre where they sleep until daytime. We then transfer them to our residential centres or refer them to other agencies if necessary.

In our residential centres, professionally trained social workers provide the youngster with individual and group counselling and also meet together with their parents to address the cause of their running away so that they can return to normal family life as soon as possible. After a two-month stay in the centre, we provide a six-month follow up after the youngsters go home.

Our family style residential centres have fifteen beds for boys and fifteen for girls and are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Our residential centres currently deal with about 500 cases per year. Because we are able to reach these youngsters before they become involved with the triads or other unsavoury elements on the streets, we have been able to reunite more than 85% of the youngsters with their families.

Since Youth Outreach was a new and unique service, previously we had been using existing services as a “model” to guide our work. In 1996, based on our own experience, we totally reorganised our administration and operations to meet our own specific needs. We wrote up our own operational manuals for all staff and instituted a new way of dealing with cases which we call “case management” as opposed to “case work.” We also instituted our own “in-house” training program for all staff complete with a “text-book” made up of reading materials appropriate to our needs, examinations and certificate presentation for those who successfully complete the exams. There is also a system of “field-work supervision” and training workshops.

Since most of the young people we are currently dealing with are students, in 1999 we are hoping to open a service which specifically targets working youth whose needs are quite different from students.

In February 1994, we drew up a long-term plan including everything that we thought Youth Outreach ought to provide as a crisis intervention service. This included some 11 different service units. It was decided to ask the Government for a grant of land and build our own Integrated Service to include all of these services under one roof both to increase efficiency and optimise the use of resources. After several years of negotiation, the Social Welfare Dept. of the Government expressed their support for the project in the summer of 1996. In January 1998, the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust pledged a grant of HK$ 70 million to cover the building costs and in June of the same year, the Lands Dept of the Government, in principle, approved a grant of land. It is hoped that this centre will be completed within three years.