It-Tnax -il Appostlu Is-Sena tal-Fidi A Martyr's Letter Extraordinary ...

South Korea
Olympic Champion
funding a school
in Southern Sudan
(ANS – Seoul) – Miss Kim Yu-na, the Olympic and
World Figure Ice-Skating Champion from South
Korea, has given a donation to the Salesians
to open a school in Southern Sudan. In the new
African State the Salesians are intending to build
many new elementary schools.
Last June, Kim Yu-na visited the Salesian
Provincial House in Seoul and met Fr Vincenzo
Donati and Bro Giacomo Comino, both Salesian
missionaries in Southern Sudan. She gave them
70 millions of South-Korean won, (about 47,000
euros) thus personally financing the building of
one of these schools.
"I had a chance to visit Togo a year ago as part
of efforts to win support for Korea's bid for the
Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and I felt the
need to help out children there," Kim said.
Fr Donati thanked her profusely and said one
Hajja Salesjana
of the schools to be built in Southern Sudan will
be named after Kim and asked the athlete to come
visit the school after it is completed.
Kim Yu-na became a Catholic convert in 2008,
taking the Christian name Stella. She has made
other generous donations before: in October 2009
her published gifts amounted to about 2,5 million
euro.
The project in Southern Sudan is for the
building of just elementary schools. Fr Gianni
Rolandi, Superior of the East Africa Province
(AFE), including Southern Sudan told the MISNA
Agency the reason: “This choice is the result of
there being an almost total lack of infrastructure
in Southern Sudan, an independent country
scarcely a year old where the wounds of civil war
are still open: one can only begin by building the
foundations.”
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