Don Bosco school students roaming in Divyadaan...

Some file photos of our Don Bosco school students ... 3 years later they certainly look different!

Happy birthday Fr Robert!

Fr Robert Pen, SDB, principal of Divyadaan, celebrates his birthday today. Happy birthday Robert, and thanks for all you do in our parish.

Team Visit 2010

Fr Michael Fernandes, provincial, and Fr Ajoy Fernandes, vice provincial, are currently in Nashik for the annual "Team Visit". This evening they are in STI; tomorrow morning in Divyadaan; and tomorrow evening in Don Bosco. Fr Elson Barretto, provincial economer, was unable to come for reasons of health.

Bro Alex Gonsalves at Don Bosco School

Bro Alex Gonsalves, SDB, gave a talk to the Don Bosco school assembly this morning. He spoke about his 24 years of work in Ahmednagar. In 24 years, he and BGVK were able to carry out watershed projects in 22 villages of the taluka. Where formerly people were with difficulty getting one crop, now they are able to get three crops in a year. The average village income has gone up many times. Bro. Alex invited the school kids to do their little part for ecology: growing trees in little plastic bags, planting them where they could, using water sparingly, recycling waste water, etc.

Bro Alex was given the Indira Priyadarshini national award, and the Vanashri Maharastra state government award for his work.

A DVD of his work is available: it records the transformation of Dongargan, a village that is famous for its Sitechi Nhani and its ancient tamarind trees.

Don Bosco Narukot

The Don Bosco school, boarding, technical school, parish, and development work at Narukot near Jambughoda in the Panchmahals District of Gujarat. Land gifted to us by Mr Piloo Mody. Wonderful place in the forest. Utterly beautiful scenes in the hills around.

Our Bro. Ajay Shelke did a year of practical training at Narukot...

Don Bosco in the Gujarat region

I have always been saying that we ought to communicate more with our parishioners. How many of our parishioners know about the works of the Salesian province of Mumbai, for example? or of the works of the FMA, and the UMI, and the FHIC?

Here is a small start: Salesians in the Gujarat region. I say Gujarat region, because the houses spill over into neighbouring Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

I have just put up a blog entry about Suket in South Rajasthan, so that is more or less seen to.

In the state of Gujarat we have: a parish, school, neighbourhood classes, and work for street boys at Baroda; boardings, schools, parishes and development works at Narukot, Chhota Udepur, Kawant, Tanakhla, Dakor; an aspirantate, parish, catechetical centre and development work at Kapadvanj. The people in all the places apart from Dakor are adivasis belonging to the Rathwa tribe, also known as Bhilalas.

In Madhya Pradesh we have a boarding, school, technical school, parish and development work at Alirajpur, and a hostel for school youth at Jhabua. The people here are adivasis belonging mostly to the Bhilala and Bhil tribes.

Don Bosco Suket

Some views of Don Bosco Suket - the school, the parish residence, the children. The Mission Fete 2009 collection of Rs 50,000 was sent to Don Bosco Suket. Fr Paul Antao, the Parish Priest and Manager of the school, has established three scholarships with the money: two of Rs 15,000 and one of Rs 20,000. The Hindi medium unaided school was up to Std VII; it was recently expanded to Std X. It used to be an aided school once; the people running it at that time thought that it was too much trouble to stay aided, and so voluntarily gave up the aid. It would be an uphill task now to get the aid back. The fees are Rs 50 a month, so the difficulties of running the school can be well imagined. Apart from the financial aspect, there is the difficulty also of finding good teachers.

St Michael's Parish, Salawad, Suket, has a small group of 1,400 parishioners largely clustered around the parish church. The men folk mostly work in the Kota stone quarries that abound in the place. They also cultivate the fields, which were gifted to the church and its people by some past ruler of the place.

We have 2 young men here in Nashik from Suket: Salesian novice Prince Bundla at STI, and Bro Clement Mathera at Divyadaan. The parish has given several priests and religious to the church, including a Salesian from another province, Edward Sacrawat. Lack of educational opportunities has, however, affected the fortunes of this hardy group of people in the southern tip of Rajasthan. With the upgrading of the school, there are hopes of returning to past glory, when Suket, with its school and boarding, used to be one of the well-known places for education in the Church of North India.

The Salesian pioneers of this mission were Frs Elson Barretto (now Provincial Economer) and Matthew Katara. Fr Paul Antao, the present parish priest, used to be administrator and teacher at Divyadaan.

Don't miss the blue skies of Suket - I have seen such blue only in the Italian skies! The famous Italian - or Mediterranean azurro... The climate is extreme: bitterly cold in winter, horribly hot and dry in summer. But you can't deny the beauty of the place.

The French Capuchin pioneers were of course creative: it is said that they had an underground pool beneath the Outhouse, where they could sit in the water during the summer. Sadly in disuse now, the pool must be full of snakes and things. Waiting for some enterprising Salesian missionary to clean up the place and revive old ways! Perhaps some future lad from Nashik....

For more photos, feel free to look up my albums on Facebook.