‘Social Hackathon’ allows Thai youth to experience synodality
By Christopher Wells
Students from Catholic schools throughout Thailand are taking part in a “Youth Social Hackathon” that provides them with opportunities and support to create a better world following a synodal dynamic.
Organized by the Catholic Education Council of Thailand with the support of partners including the Archdiocese of Bangkok and the General Secretariat of the Synod, the four-day event invites teams from 12 Catholic schools across the country to investigate issues raised by the Synod that are found in their own communities and then propose creative solutions to those problems.
A synodal journey
The event is inspired by startup tech "hackathon weekends", says Dr Peter Monthienvichienchai, director of LiCAS News, the Archdiocese of Bangkok’s English-language news outlet. In the tech world, “hackathons weekends” allow hackers “to develp a product that they would go and pitch for funding to venture capitalists,” he explains. “What we’re doing here at the social hackathon is that we use a similar format, but we ask the children here to try to solve issues in their community that matter to them.”
Instead of producing a tech product, Monthienvichienchai says, the students will “take a synodal journey with the people on the fringe of society, especially in their local community, listening to what their challenges, what their sufferings are, and come to together and attack the problem; come up with a solution; and pitch for funding.”
At the conclusion of hackathon, judges will award funding to the most outstanding pitches “to make their solutions come true.”
The whole point, though, says Monthienvichienchai, “is to engage youth in a way that uses their language. It uses their energy.”
At the same time, “for us, it’s an exercise that we’re listening to them. It’s showing them that we trust them to not only solve a problem, but to identify the problem that matters. And then the funding is really to empower the youth to take action and make their solution a reality.”
Practicing synodality
Monthienvichienchai notes that, although organized around Catholic schools, many of the students taking part are themselves not Catholic. “So for them—and also for the adults—it’s an experience to discover and practice synodality.”
In particular, the Hackathon emphasizes listening: “The whole point of the first two days,” he says, "is to inspire them to listen properly.”
Where a tech event would bring in experts in a certain industry, Monthienvichienchai says the social hackathon brings in experts who have made a difference in their community, “who may have changed the mindset of their entire community. They are people who have led their social action in the country.”
He says it is important to help young people understand that “even without multinational funding, even without adult or government action, they can make a difference.”
Seeing the world differently
Monthienvichienchai says he hopes that after the Hackathon, the young participants will see their views and their understanding of the world changed. “What I mean by that,” he explains, “is that when you describe something in a different way, it can be either very limiting or it can be very liberating. I hope that with the inspiration of the experts, with the hacking that they do—when they have the time to look at a particular issue very, very deeply, more deeply than they have done before—that they see a different way. And it’s their way of making a difference in the world.”
So, he continues, “when they look at that differently, I hope that they will feel that their behaviour will change based on a different way to describe and see things. And I hope that they will feel empowered, that when they come to a problem in the future, that they would know that they have this power to make a difference, to look at things differently, and focus on—I think we call them here their ‘superpower’. Each one of them has their superpower, and they can really make a difference, and to be brave to be inspired by the Holy Spirit.”
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