Author: admin

To Tony Colaco our fellow Colleagues in NSW

I am going to Goa in Oct this year after a very long time. Living in Australia and not having Rabies in this country has prompted me to do something for Goa and also make it a safer place especially for all that live there as well as the tourist industry as I have been hearing for some years now quite a few tourists that have gone back to Europe and USA died after having contracted Rabies in Goa.

Being Goa’s first private veterinary practitioner I am still passionate about helping Goa and will be helping the IAR ( International Animal Rescue ) team in North Goa in a vaccination camp for stray dogs as well as will be funding the vaccines for this project. Already I have managed in the last few months to motivate ex Bombay Vet College Colleagues from California and South Africa to do the same when they come to India on their next holiday as many of them come every year or 2 years. I am aware that there is help but to eliminate this problem these NGO’s require funding and so the process is slow hence I want to help and motivate other overseas Goans to help and also get more people to donate towards vaccine costs especially with the AUD being such a good rate compared to the INR so this enables us to get the vaccines easily.. more vaccinations and neutering means reduction in the number of strays as well as the disease.

There is another Animal Welfare Organization in South Goa ( GAWT) and even though they are still getting back to me I would also like to help them with money if the funds are enough to go around ) towards vaccination and neutering the strays as they too are doing similar work.

Kind regards

Dr Joy de Souza

Mumbai-born British Soprano,
Patricia Rozario
to be feted by the Prince of Wales.

Goa’s most famous classical music export will soon add yet another feather to her cap. Patricia Rozario, the critically-acclaimed, London-based opera star who originally hails from Assagao, was recently confirmed to the prestigious fellowship of the Royal College of Music (RCM), thereby becoming the first Goan and only the second Indian (after Zubin Mehta in 1989) to feature on the list.

A letter Rozario received from Colin Lawson, director of the institution, states: “It gives me great pleasure to inform you that on the recommendation of the Council of the Royal College of Music, our president, Charles, The Prince of Wales, has graciously approved the nomination for you to become a fellow of the Royal College of Music.”

The formal presentation of the fellowship will take place next spring, when Rozario receives the award from Prince Charles in a traditional ceremony in London. On that day, she will sign a document that puts her on par with the fellowship’s other past awardees, some of whom are now recognized as stalwarts in their field. Apart from Mehta, one of the modern era’s finest conductors, the RCM’s elite list also contains its fair share of legends from around the world.

American violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin, who gained popularity in India in the late-20th century after his association with Ravi Shankar, is among RCM’s more prominent fellows. Others Rozario will share space with include composers Benjamin Britten and Richard Strauss, musical theatre king Andrew Lloyd Webber, cellist Edward Elgar, pianist Arthur Rubinstein, conductor Arturo Toscanini, and tenor Placido Domingo.

“It (the fellowship) is a great honour, and I will be able to put the letters FRCM after my name, after the ceremony next spring,” a jubilant Rozario, who is presently in Mumbai, told TOI. Royal honours, however, are not new to the soprano. She had previously been awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth-II in 2001.

Meanwhile, Rozario, whose ‘Giving voice to India’ project attempts to identify and train young opera talent in the country, will hold a five-day workshop in Goa later this month. One of its beneficiaries, Oscar Castellino, is another Goan who had a tryst with royalty—in June, he, along with the RCM choir and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, serenaded Queen Elizabeth-II on a barge on the Thames, as she celebrated 60 years as the Monarch of England.

NB: Patricia Rozario is our member Glenn Mathias’s first cousin. Patricia is also first cousin to Mark and Roberta DeSouza and niece to Aunty Merlyn DeSouza.

Unique relic of St. Francis Xavier will leave Rome and head to Australia
4th July 2012, 16:55:27, Rome

Francis Xavier is one of Australia’s patron saints. In just a few months,
one of his treasured relics will make its way all the way from a Church
in Rome to Australia.

Msgr. Peter Comensoli
Auxiliary Bishop, Archdiocese of Sydney
“It’s very rare for the the relic of the arm of St. Francis Xavier to ever
leave the Gesu, here in Rome, but we thought it would be good as part
of a special year of Grace that Australia is having, that we might have
the arm of St. Francis Xavier make a pilgrimage around the country.”

St. Francis Xavier co-founded the Society of Jesus. As part of this project,
Jesuits here in Rome agreed to lend his arm to Australia. Sydney’s Auxiliary
bishop says once in the country, the relic will stay in each diocese for about
two to three days. It’s all ties in to Australia’s so called “Year of Grace” that
will end at Pentecost in 2013.

Msgr. Peter Comensoli
Auxiliary Bishop, Archdiocese of Sydney
“His right arm was this arm that baptized and blessed so many thousands
of people in our part of the world, not in the European part of the world but
in the Southern part of the world where Australia is”

The relic is scheduled to arrive in Australia on 16th September.
Several pilgrimages are planned in the following months within Australia.
On 3rd December, it will make its way back to Sydney where his feast
day will be celebrated. On the 4th of December, the relic will make its
way back to Rome.