A saying oft used in Vocational Training Education is: "Give a man a fish, and you give him
food for another day, teach a man to fish and you give him food for a lifetime." (ok, this goes for women too!) Fr. Renato Torresan thought of giving them a net, and off they went to our backyard pond. With Chomroen heading the pack, their afternoon was rewarded with a haul of fish. Their prize catch -two huge catfish. Of course they got to eat some and share some with the other children too.In the dog-eat-dog of today, there is another variation to this saying I once read somewhere. It goes: "Teach a man to fish, and you introduce another competitor into the overcrowded fishing industry. Give a man a fish, and you stimulate demand for your product." Interestingly this is what is happening in the technical industry when there is an oversupply of skills training in one field and that's why
advertising chooses to give out freebies of products both to sell new technologies and to make them diversify into newer sets of technical skills. Truly those of us in Voc-tech training have to be aware of this. But then there is too the TCO (total cost of ownership) to be considered since running vocational schools for poor people and upgrading of equipment demand large financial grants. After all, remove the skilled workers from the country and you'll be left with a lot of "talkers"(those who sell things) and no "doers"(those who fix things).Today when I went to Mass, I heard You talk about Your Mission as you read from the scroll of Prophet Isaiah. Now I remember you asked me to be part of it - something like: "fisher of men." Oh, ok, ok! let me get busy fishing too.
