The third edition of Yuva Sadbhav was held at the Pilar Pilgrim Centre, Pilar on 3 August
2024. It was organised by ‘Sadbhav’, an endeavour of the Society of Pilar, to foster Inter religious solidarity and harmonious living, in collaboration with Fr. Agnel College, Pilar and UZWAAD, an NGO. There were ninety-seven participants from nine different colleges (Carmel College, Nuvem; Fr. Agnel College, Pilar; Nirmala Institute of Education, Althinho; St. Joseph Vaz College, Sancoale; Dhempe College, Miramar; Goa Multi-Faculty College, Dharbandora; MES College, Zuari Nagar; Rosary College, Navelim; Government College, Sanquelim) from across Goa.
An interesting part of Yuva Sadbhav 2024 was a workshop on Street plays to empower the
youth to promote communal harmony through street plays, especially on Campus. It was facilitated by Ms. Sendra Pereira, (Assistant Professor, Philosophy, Dhempe College, president and founder of UZWAAD), Ms Amreen Sheikh (Secretary, Uzwaad), Veda Desai, (Treasurer Uzwaad) and Jeevan Naik (founding member, Uzwaad), the members of the NGO Uzwaad.
All the participants expressed their satisfaction with the workshop. Ms. Chaitali Mulimani,
FYBCom from Fr. Agnel College, Pilar, said “the street play workshop was meaningful and it
empowered young minds to foster a sense of social responsibility, to promote unity and harmony among diverse communities and to address social issues and create positive change”.
At the outset, Dr. Fr. Elvis Fernandes SFX, Convenor of Sadbhav delivered the keynote
address on the topic ‘Inter religious dialogue on campus: Building understanding and respect among students. This was followed by an Interactive Session on ‘Overcoming prejudice on campus and building human solidarity’, facilitated by Ms. Gayathri Rao Konkar, Student Counsellor at Nirmala Institute of Education and Goa Institute of Management. Both these sessions focused on Building Inter religious solidarity on campus by overcoming prejudice. Snehal Patil, another student, from Nirmala Institute of Education, Altinho had this to say “All the sessions were very informative, eye opening, interactive, inspiring. Its objectives were fulfilled. I am going to take with me a lot of courage to handle the inter-religious issues happening in public. I will be vocal about the problems and try my best to resolve them in some or other way. I am Going with a fruitful experience. Five Thumbs up to the organisers!”
The Uzwaad team also conducted an interactive session on the theme ‘Building Bridges:
Promoting Communal Harmony and Unity’.
The day's proceedings were wrapped up by Architect Tallulah D’Silva and a member of
Sadbhav. She called upon the students to step up on stage and share their experiences, learnings and how they would integrate these learning in their lives and about the practical ways that they would engage in.
The programme came to a close with Dr. Fr. Frederico Rodrigues, Principal of Fr. Agnel
College, Plar, presenting the mementos and certificates to the resource persons and students respectively. Ms. Ambrin Being, a member of Sadbhav, was the programme coordinator. She was closely supported by Ms. Irene George, student counsellor at Fr. Agnel College, Pilar. Ms. Marisha Gonsalves compered the programme while Ms. Amelia Coral, Assistant Professor, Fr Agnel College of Arts & Commerce, Pilar proposed the Vote of Thanks.
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