Goa’s Parish Youth Celebrate Village Heritage

By John M. Alfonso OCD –

Margao: The Regina Martyrum Parish Youth Association (RMPYA) Assolna organized a unique contest — Amcho Ganv, Amchem Daiz (Our Village, Our Heritage) depicting cultural heritage of villages in Goa for the Parish Youth Group of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman in Konkani.

Participating parish youth groups, with a minimum participants of ten, were asked to present a four-minute original video along with original composition of Konkani lyrics and music depicting occupations, traditions, customs, historical sites in their villages.

The contest, which was open to the Parish youth of Goa, was required to have singers of the village/town, and a clip of singers appearing in the video. They were also asked to abide by government norms like social distancing in the contest. Altogether 33 parish groups participated in the contest, which was judged by Cielda Pereira, Patson Barbosa, Lenoy Gomendes and Fr. Mathew Rebello. All the videos were uploaded on the organizer’s YouTube channel. Cortalim Parish Youth group won the first place (Rs. 20,000) while second (Rs. 15,000) and third (Rs. 10,000) place won by Velim Parish Youth and Aldona Parish Youth, respectively. Velim Parish Youth also received the most liked YouTube video prize.

Goans at large appreciated the contest through their comments on the YouTube channel. “The main aim was to exhibit the greatness, richness and prestige of each place,” said Fr. Mansueto Fernandes, Coordinator of the Regina Martyrum Parish Youth while commenting on the purpose of this contest. “And also (a) to know and disclose the richness of Goan villages, (b) to recognize and appreciate the ‘daiz’ (heritage) that adds beauty to Goa, (c) to give an opportunity to the youngsters to come together and work together with their qualities and capacities for common good,” he explained further.

“As an initiative of the Church, it promotes historical-ecological concerns of our “common home” (earth), thus giving reverence to the Creator God,” Fr. Mansueto said. According to him, this initiative may lead youngsters to continue to work as a team for the love of our ‘mannkulem’ Goa.

Satisfied over the participation by the parish youth, Fr Fernandes said that 40 parishes had registered, out of which 33 took part. “We were amazed by this great number, because it requires lot of planning and preparation,” he said.

“The theme ‘Amcho ganv, amchem daiz’, encouraged us to find out information about our heritage, culture, traditions, traditional occupations, the personalities, the architecture and lots more that we hardly knew about,” said Garry Fernandes, a member of parish youth of Velim, who participated in the competition and won the second place. “Finding the right music that fit well to the lyrics and sooth the ears of the listener, was the next hurdle, but it was very well taken care by our youth member,” He added.

Fr Tomas Lobo, Parish Priest of St. Thomas Church Aldona, who composed a song for his parish youth group and won the third place, appreciated the initiative taken by the Regina Martyrum Parish Youth Group in organizing this unique competition. “Youth from Goa came to know the heritage, culture from Goa and this contest awakened in them their responsibility to preserve it,” Fr. Lobo said. He also said that his youth were very enthusiastic to participate in it.

“As youth we were not aware what really our Cortalim holds on to. This competition made us research and interact with the elderly who knew the old era and its cultures. After listening to them we came to know how beautiful our village is,” said Pricy da Gama, a member of Cortalim Parish Youth, who won the first place in this competition.

“We really appreciate the motto behind this competition as it brought a lot of hidden things in light and brought us as youth back to our roots where we were born and brought up,” she added.