Archdiocesan Office for Environment

Programme Report by Santan Fernandes

In a first of its kind event, the Archdiocesan Office for Environment (AOE) and the Diocesan Catechetical Center (DCC) collaborated to organise the ‘Green Bal Melava’.  This all-day event was conducted specifically for catechism students of standards 7th to 10th.  It was held on 21st January, 2018 at St Pius X College, the Archdiocesan Seminary in Goregaon.  The theme f...

Pope Francis has declared September 1 as the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. According to Pope Francis, "The annual World Day of prayer for the Care of Creation offers to individual believers and to the community a precious opportunity to renew our personal participation in our vocation as stewards of creation, raising to God our thanks for the marvellous works that He has entrusted to our care, invoking his help for the protection of creation and his mercy for the sins committe...

The Archdiocesan Office for Environment (AOE) in collaboration with Women’s Commission of the Mumbai Archdiocese organised two one-day Conferences on “Climate Change Impacts on Women” on 29th and 30th April 2017.

The conference at St John the Baptist Church, Thane was held on April 29, 2017 where total 31 women from 3 deaneries namely, Kurla,...

The Archdiocesan Office for Environment planned a Carbon Fast from Ash Wednesday, March 1 to Saturday, April 8, 2017.  Each parish of the Archdiocese of Bombay was alloted one day to choose and immplement any activity which would help in reducing climate change.  The following measures have been taken by the respective parishes:

St Joseph Church, Vikhroli West:

1. We have replaced all the lights in the Church from ordinary tube lights to LED tu...

The Archdiocesan Office for Environment in collaboration with the Institute for Community Organisation Research, GreenLine, Justice and Peace Commission, and the Department of Inter-Religious Studies - St Xavier's College held a seminar "THE UNIVERSE OF INTEGRAL ECO-EDUCATION" on 24th November 2016 from 09:00 to 16:00 hours at the Don Bosco campus in Matunga, Mumbai. Fifty three participants - school teachers and staff/ volunteers of community centres attended the programme. The seminar aim...

Sessions on ‘What is Good Life?’ have previously been conducted by Walter Mendoza for the Archdiocesan Office for Environment and the Diocesan Youth Centre. The session was modified to suit the target audience by Fr Lancy Pinto (Justice and Peace Commission, Mumbai) and S N Rebello (AOE), and then conducted for the workers of Navjeet Community Centre in Bandra, Mumbai on 30th August 2016.

The participants were first asked to come up with three key words each for their pe...

Celebrating festivals in an environmentally responsible manner was conceptualised as part of the green events’ initiative being implemented in collaboration by ICOR and AOE 2016 onwards.  In light of this, and inspired by Laudato Si', AOE’s Suren, Allwyn and Shawna Nemesia developed suggestions for eco-Easter, which featured in our March e-newsletter and in the Easter issue of the Examiner.

Eco-Easter suggestions included:

• Decorating the ba...