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“Hi Mumbai”… a journey that changes life

The vision of the project

“Hi, Mumbai” is the title of an experience of life made by pupils and teachers of a Vocational Training

Centre “Centromoda Canossa” in Trent: the realization of a dream which began by meeting Giancarlo Urbani and seeing his vitality and mental projection on a world scale. The aim of the project was to make our students live an experience abroad which would eliminate prejudices and obvious interpretive mind patterns formulated at a distance, searching for that Canossian seed scattered throughout the world and, today, more fruitful than ever. This project won the “Prize for Peace – Gianluigi Bettiol” launched by the Municipality of Trent which also economically sustained the initiative together with the collaboration and support of the Canossian Foundation, through its Director, Sr. Liliana Ugoletti, and Giancarlo Urbani, project manager.Following a well-organised educational itinerary that involved two classes of 15-year-olds, 9 pupils took part in the trip to Mumbai, accompanied by three teachers and two volunteers, where they spent eventful days marked by intense and varied daily experiences:

– morning and afternoon: visits to various Canossian communities in search of the aims and the spirit which they embody, how they are organised, which activities they carry out and meeting the people in charge and witnesses. Among the places visited we can remember: Andheri (Mumbai) the Spirituality Centre Nirmalasharam, where we met M. Griselda Vettori and M. Giuseppina Leoni who came to India in 1950 and saw the Canossian educational complex;

Mahim (Mumbai) where we visited a Special School, built thanks to the financial help of the Autonomous Province of Trent, where our pupils interacted with two classes of disabled pupils in simple handicrafts and creative work; we then visited Canossa School 50 metres from the Special School, meeting the student leaders of the school; Manickpur (80 km from Mumbai) where we took part in the official inauguration of new school rooms by the Bishop, a project realised by the Canossian Foundation and the Cariverona Foundation; Talasari (180 km from Mumbai), with visits to a leprosarium and to a rural hospital where we met an Italian Sister, M. Pasqualina Gennari. The hospital has been completely renewed thanks to the Canossian Foundation together with the help of the Autonomous Province of Trent, Cariverona Foundation, the Region of Lombardy and Only the Brave Foundation.

– lunch and supper: sharing with the Sisters and educators on the Canossian communities visited and what we had seen.

– evening: after supper discussion on which values and experiences were observed and involved the interiority of the pupils during the visits, regarding questions about meaning such as: Did what you see today (poverty in the streets, leprosarium, etc.) make you reflect on suffering? What do you think of suffering and how do you face it? What is your idea and experience of happiness? How can one live life with love?

Since the task of school is to favour learning, the maximum attention was given to avoiding an “exotic tourism” effect, trying to find similarities within, and not beyond, diversities. This is why one of the key moments of the

day was precisely time for re-elaboration after supper, where each person had the chance to narrate the experience made and try to find a personal and universal meaning. Our pupils expressed the desire to treat demanding arguments, the will to face their equals and adults in a way that often may not easily take place in school work.If one were to ask each of us to sum up our most vivid recollections in a few images, we would remember, above all, four: the faces of Sr. Josemary and her velvety solemn gait, Sr. Rose and her knowing wisdom, Sr. Mary among her most affectionate handicapped children, Sr. Maria a queen of hospitality and the great leader, Sr. Maggie. We love you all!

Alberto Garniga, Head of CFP “Centromoda Canossa” – Trent

A small token of thanks to India

A small token of thanks to India, which welcomed us for ten days in the course of our journey, cannot be contained (could it ever be?) in an exhaustive and definitive account, because the interior panorama opened within us is still largely unexplored. The forced immobility of the long journey by plane already announced the slowing down of the rhythm that life would take on for us in India. It corresponded to a tranquil state of soul since, even if we were going to another continent, for us it was like going to a familiar place: we were expected by the Canossian Sisters, of whom Giancarlo Urbani had talked to us so much, and they welcomed and accompanied us throughout the whole experience.In this situation, favourable to reflection, I remembered that at the beginning of the

Manickpur. The Bishop opens new school rooms.

Mahim. A classroom in the Special School.

Mahim. Special people.

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school year, while presenting the phase of adolescence as a precious time during which to think of what really counts, a student asked this question, How can we, young people, understand what is really worth fighting for? This normal and fundamental question, posed by a youngster who asked for the tools of discernment, struck me immediately because he was questioning us on our educational responsibility as adults: “How much are adolescents a mirror of the insecurity of us adults, a mirror of our almost invisible presence in society? Youngsters need to see true and authentic witnesses of life, they must be able to count on adults who are not ethically neutral, who do not live their religious and political beliefs in an intimate way but dare to bear witness to them. I was convinced that school cannot be exempt from this formative process: the time of adolescence is still the time of formation and still today a privileged context, because it places before the students a group of adults with whom they may confront themselves and discuss their mission in life, and with whom to plan

initiatives and life experiences meaningful for his growth.The exchange project “Hi, Mumbai” was intended to be an important experience for the lives of the participants. To make a meaningful experience does not necessarily require one to go who knows where, however, a journey stimulates one to sharpen one’s senses: how much one is able to open self and let the newness of a place free and invade interior space depends much on the people one meets. And we met special people, Canossian Sisters on whose faces we detected goodness without sentimental aura, without expectations, powerfully practical, tranquil and tranquilizing. They prevented us from sliding into a helpless state of mind at the sight of life situations that seemed to us impossible, they helped us to calm impulses of anger against local authorities who seemed inactive in finding solutions and practical answers to so many daily tragedies and to the needs which we often came across. Sr. Maggie, Sr. Josemary, Sr. Mary and Sr. Rose prevented us from identifying India with its injustices, as

often happens to the western traveller who visits the so-called South of the world.Thinking back to this trip, numerous sad images re-emerge which are unforgettable. Situations of extreme misery in which young people and adults live, children camped on the pavement who approached our stationery minibus to ask for something. But there are also so many positive and happy images; we can relish again the taste of coconuts that were picked from a very high palm tree for us by an Indian boy in the garden of the Special School. We came to know an India in which Christ’s spirit, vivid and gentle, worked miracles: the schools, social centres and the leprosarium visited brought us to know Canossian Sisters who had an unshakable trust in God and men. It does not seem strange to me that Pasolini, in his diary of a visit to India in 1961, noted that the Catholic religion in that country seemed to him a splendidly successful transplant. We can well imagine as pioneers the Canossian Sisters, Griselda Vettori and Giuseppina Leoni, present in India from the end of the Second World War, who probably heard people ask, “Are you goddesses that you can help everyone?” I believe they seemed a little like goddesses even to our students for whom their choice of life is not easily understandable. This example is important; today, rather than teachers,

we need witnesses. But even these are not enough; one’s “self” must be set in motion. Experiences of voluntary service may help only if united to silence, listening and prayer.Today, when we think of India we feel, above all, the nostalgia of a welcome. Everywhere, the Canossian Sisters, and many lay people, welcomed us in a way no one expected. Everywhere there were signs of welcome: written on the ground together with flower decorations of coloured earth, expressed with flowers or a garland, a bracelet or a brooch; the talik, a sign on the forehead with vermillion that symbolizes the third eye; songs, dances and banquets. In Indian culture, a welcoming ceremony is not complete or beautiful if it does not have the right ornaments. This is because it is a rite imbued with meaning and value in which all of us felt ourselves embraced, especially our students who, for the first time, confessed they felt valued as an individual.The journey is not over; the Lord has put a seed in each of our gardens and we wish that it will flower, but only He knows the time of the first shoot. However, let us remember our welcome which, like an embrace, makes us feel no longer alone, even if we are unique, that is, different. And the fact of not feeling alone is the first condition for opening ourselves, with trust, to life.

Monica Gadotti, Teacher of CFP “Centromoda Canossa” - Trent

Mahim. Canossa School.Mahim. Alberto Garniga addresses the students.

Andheri. M. Griselda and M. Giuseppina.