24^th Sept 2007 

VOBA Team attends National Jesuit Alumni Meet in Trivandrum

The Vth National Alumni meet of the Jesuit Alumni Associations of India (JAAI) was held at Loyola College Trivandrum from 7-9 th Sept.2007. The meet was called CHILANKA (meaning Gungroo)  and the theme of the meet was “Role of Jesuit Alumni in a Resurgent India”. A team of ten VOBA members and two from Dyanamata Vidyalaya Sangmner represented the Pune Province. There were more than 520 delegates consisting of Jesuit Alumni and Jesuit priests from all over the country who attended the meet. The meet was excellently organized and the event was a great learning experience for the team. 

The evening session on 7^th started with the traditional welcome. The meet was inaugurated by Rev.Fr.Hector D’souza S.J. the Provincial of South Asia Assistancy.The speakers who addressed us during the conference were extremely good and included Mr.T.P.Sreenivasan IFS former permanent representative of India to the UN, Mr.Alphonse Kannamthanam IAS & MLA, Mrs.Lida Jacob IAS, Rev.Dr.Vincent J.Braganza S.J., Jt.Sec.JEA, Higher Education South Asia Assistancy, Mr.K.Jaykumar IAS and Fr.Casimir Raj S.J., Director XLRI. They spoke on a variety of topics including “Can India make an impact in the Global arena”, Women in a Resurgent India”, “In a fast changing world, can Moral Values erode”  etc. 

Then there were group discussions in which all delegates had to participate. Each Zone or schools from the Zone were allowed to make a presentation. Farokh Irani & Bobby Jacob had prepared a short power-point presentation on St.Vincent’s High School and our VOBA activities.  

The evening of day two there was a grand cultural programme at the Trivandrum Golf Club...with kathakali, fire dance and traditional songs. This was followed by a grand fellowship and dinner. After dinner Mr.Allen Martyres entertained us with his guitar and songs and number of delegates joined in the fun which went on till late night.

On Sunday there were Zonal meetings and the election of the new National Governing Body of JAAI. VOBA established itself at the National level and Mr.Bobby Jacob (our Jt.Sec)  has been elected as the Vice-President in the JAAI National Governing Council. VOBA has also been entrusted the job of creating the website for JAAI. The Pune Province representation on the West Zone consists of Fr.Robert Das as the Province Co-ordinator, Mr.Arthur Morris  and Mr.Imtiaz Lokhandwalla as the Accredited members for the West Zone. 

The VOBA group also went to Kottayam and Kumarakom and enjoyed their backwater cruise as also the hospitality of  some of the relatives of Mr.Bobby Jacob whose homes they visited.The members who represented VOBA consisted of Mr.Arthur Morris, Mr.Imtiaz Lokhandwalla, Mr.Bobby Jacob, Mr.Allan Martyres, Mr.Manoj Sanghvi, Mr.Farokh Irani, Mr.Raymond Rebello, Mr.Richard Fernandes, Mr & Mrs.Joe Rebello. Dyanamata Vidyalaya was represented by Fr.Robert Das and Mr.P.Salve.

Secretary VOBA

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