Sr Mariazinha Carvalho PVBM, presently at Presentation Convent, Orlim, Fr Anil Kumar, baptized as Augusto Carvalho and presently at St Joseph’s Chapel Davorlim and Fr Alarico Carvalho SFX, presently at Fr Agnel School, New Delhi, are celebrating 50 years of their final vows as a nun and ordination as priests.
Sr Mariazinha was the principal of Presentation Convent, Church
Park, a prestigious school n Chennai. The late J Jayalalithaa described her
student days in this school as the happiest days in her life. Wanting to serve
the poor and downtrodden, Sr Mariazinha opted to go to the missions in Zambia
where she went to a remote village, Sichili, a village with no electricity nor
shops and 7-8 hours by jeep to the nearest town. She picked up the local
language to sing, preach, read and teach in the language of the people. She
also treated the local people for minor illnesses with reflexology,
acupuncture, and herbal medicines. Her contributions to the development of the
Sichili Mission, and later in leadership roles, pastoral care etc. greatly
impacted the lives of the people and the congregation. God blessed her with two
additional lives, one when she was the only survivor in an accident in Zambia
and second when he brought her back to health from the brink of death when she
was recuperating from cancer.
Fr Anil Kumar was ordained as an SFX priest and then went on to
join the Montford fathers. After establishing their presence in Bangalore, he went
to a remote village in Andhra Pradesh to work in the midst of the Savra tribe,
who are at the bottom of the tribal ladder. Fr Anil Kumar changed his name to
find better acceptance and learned to speak the tribal language. The people
were so poor that they would sell their children. Fr. Anil would reverse the
deal with the buyer and return the children to their parents. His greatest
achievement lies in getting parents, for whom education was a foreign concept,
to place their trust in him to educate their children so that they could have a
different and better future. He started a residential school and took 12
children to live there. The boys and girls had never experienced the confines
of a room and would repeatedly run away and he would then drive back to their
homes and bring them back. He nurtured them right through school and college.
Today, two of the 12, are gazetted officers and another 8 hold jobs in
government offices. Taking children in one generation from the trees to office
desks is a remarkable achievement. Fr Anil is now with the Diocese of Goa
engaged in pastoral work.
Like his two siblings, Fr Alarico worked among the rural poor in
Madhya Pradesh with the Oraon tribals, and then in Bihar with the Khadia and
Munda tribals. He then returned to Goa after which he went to Fr Agnel Ashram
in Mumbai, where he worked at the International Placement Services and he sent
thousands of people to work in the Gulf during the oil boom. He then went to
Delhi, where he built three schools in the National Regional Capital (NCR) and
an orphanage. He also contributed immensely to the development of the Fr Agnel
institutions in Goa. He is a strict disciplinarian and his schools had the
reputation of providing a good education, with access to the latest technology.
He started NGOs to upskill displaced people in Molarbhand, Delhi and rag and
garbage pickers in Khoda village, Noida. With the skills acquired they are now
employable. His charity knows no bounds and he will go to any extent to help
those in need. When offered land in South Delhi, Fr Alaric acquired just the
acreage he needed, leaving behind sufficient land for a park to be built behind
the school for the benefit of the low-income local residents.
The
Thanksgiving Mass on the occasion of the 50 years of their final vows and
ordination will be celebrated on May 6 at 4.30 pm at St Michael’s Church,
Orlim.