Youth gifted Don Bosco Club House

JOVITO LOPES

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PANJIM: The state-of-the art Don Bosco Club House, sponsored and built by Sporting Clube de Goa at the sprawling Don Bosco complex, here, will be inaugurated on the feast of founder St John Bosco on Tuesday at 5 p.m by Fr Ian Figueiredo, Provincial.

Fr Paul D’Sousa, Vice-provincial, Panjim and Konkan province and Panjim Rector disclosed that the club house is a gift to the youth from Peter Vaz, the dynamic owner of I-League Club, Sporting.

“Sporting uses the ground for their practice sessions, which are fully maintained by the club which has adopted Don Bosco school students for their intensive youth football development programmes. And, now Peter Vaz has created new facilities to be used both by the club as well as Don Bosco institutions,” stated Dr Rufino Monteiro, president of Don Bosco Past Pupils Association.

“The Club House has two sets of changing rooms, for man and women. The facilities will also be used by Don Bosco College, higher secondary and high school students. There are two office rooms and a cafetaria on the ground floor and the first floor will be used for the office of Don Bosco Alumni, as Peter is himself a past pupil of Don Bosco Panjim. The first floor also has recreation, conference, secretarial rooms, president’s office and a spacious terrace for carrying out charitable and social activities and youth programmes of the alumni,” elaborated Dr Rufino.

Fr Wilfred Fernandes, administrator, pointed out that it was

befitting that the club house will be another facility for the benefit of the youth and that it fitted perfectly with Don Bosco’s vision to attract numerous boys and adults to be connected with the “Preventive System of Education”.

Fr Wilfred reiterated that Don Bosco believed education to be a “matter of the heart” and that the youth must not only be loved, but know that they are loved. “We need to live by his three components: reason, religion and kindness. Music and sports also go into the mix,” remarked Fr Wilfred, who has been closely associated with the project with Peter Vaz.

Don Boscos, all over, have been rendering yeoman service in the cause of education with even a full-fledged university in Assam and Goa has been  a shining  example of their unique dedication and devotion to the cause, with an engineering college being added this year at Fatorda which they are promoting with exceptional passion, putting into practice the convictions of their founder, St John Bosco, whose feast will be celebrated on Tuesday.

Don Bosco was an educational practitioner rather than an educational theorist.