Challenges that the CHOICE programme faces

Sep 06, 2019

TAIWAN : CHOICE ASIA celebrated its 16th Choice Asia Conference (CAC) with the theme Dancing With The Light at West Lake, Miaoli, Taiwan Aug 14-18. Nine countries, with a total number of 250 youths, participated in this conference. They were from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Fiji. Thirty-one youths comprising two couples, two priests represented Malaysia.

The youths and couple from KL Archdiocese, Penang Diocese and Malacca Johore Diocese were accompanied by Fr Francis Andrew from Penang Diocese.

Fr Galvin Ngumbang from Kuching Diocese accompanied the youths and couple from East Malaysia. CHOICE Malaysia were given the privilege to animate the Holy Mass on Aug 16.

Bishop John Baptist Lee celebrated the Mass for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Aug 15. In his homily, he mentioned that the blessings of the Lord always accompany those who believe in Him and Mother Mary.

Discussions at this conference were centred on the challenges CHOICE faces in each of the respective countries. The new findings/ learnings on how we could promote CHOICE to the youths were some of the topics that were discussed in the conference.

On Aug 17, all the delegates from each country met to further discuss more relevant issues while others went out to participate in the Make a Difference (MAD) project organised by the Taiwan CHOICE group.

The MAD project was “Sanitary Pad Project” and “Slow Flying Angels”. The Sanitary Pad project taught us how to prepare Reusable Sanitary Pads for those in rural areas.

The Slow Flying Angels were paper weights made by painting selected rocks by special needs children.

The day concluded with Holy Mass and thereafter a Gala Cultural Night Dinner.

The CAC ended on Aug 18 with Holy Mass celebrated by our Indonesian counterparts.

Malaysia was unanimously chosen to host the 17th CHOICE ASIA CONFERENCE in 2022.