Roque Barreto interview by Muriel Lucas for Goan Archives

Pray the Rosary – Service in the Greater Toronto Area – April 11, 2010
See http://www.konkanirosary.org/  for information 

Progress Report - Goan Voice Canada interviews Michael Pinto
MP- Michael Pinto, GVC – Goan Voice Canada , AR - Aunt Rosy

1. GVC – The Rosary service on April 11, has become the talk of the town in Konkani circles here. Can you give us an update?
   MP – The enthusiasm and support from various groups has been heart warming, we will meet our target for the attendance. I hope only this event will continue on annual basis and some people come forward to pickup the challenge.

2. GVC- You and your team only began to make arrangements only in early March – how did you manage to get it done in so short a time.
   MP – My aunt Rosy Pinto ( Chorao-Porvorim) was the driving force. Here is the story that got me going. 17th Jan was her 78th birthday, when I phoned to wish her.
   
   Here is the dialogue
   MP- Vaddissachim porbim tuka (Happy birthday)
   AR- Thank you baba ( Thank you, son)
   MP- Susie ( My godchild) khuim assa? ( Where is Susie?)
   AR – Ti missak gelea ( She has gone for Mass )
   MP- Tum Kitem kortai? ( What are you doing?)
   AR- Hanv Ters kortam (I am praying the Rosary )
   MP- Kona barabor? (With whom?)
   AR- Hanv ani mojem sunnem (Me and my dog)
   
   The last reply sent a chill through my stomach. She was handicapped and alone. She always said the rosary and died on the 20th Jan. of a cardiac arrest. Hence I was determined to make the rosary video available worldwide for the month of May A few dedicated people believed in the cause and formed the core committee. They worked hard to overcome all the usual bickering, obstacles and politics. The one motto they believed “It is the love and devotion we have, for Our Lady and to preserve our culture”

3. GVC – What happens after the Church event – will post processing the videotape offer any special technical challenges in meeting the May target dates?
   MP – Yes we have few technical challenges to include in the video, special features like:
   a) Identify on the world map which cities are praying simultaneously
   b) Separate page to enter “Intentions”
   c) Start Individual Rosary
   d) Join Worldwide Rosary
   e) Show Goan Churches and Holy land pictures etc
   We will endeavour meet the early May target date.
   Visit our website http://www.konkanirosary.org/ for progress reports

4. GVC – Will the Toronto Event spur Goan Catholic communities over the world follow suit – Is there a chance we see something soon, and from where
   MP – Panjim is committed and the date will be known in few days. I have invited other countries to pickup the challenge and videotape other mysteries. Discussions are in progress with US, UK and Australia. I am prepared to provide guidance, support, literature and the templates. I have music sheets and midi files for 9 versions of Ladainhas provided by Maestro Antonio De Figueiredo Family

5. GVC - Many in the younger age groups will be hearing the Rosary recited in their heritage language for the first time. Can the experience gained be extended to cover other areas of our religious heritage in Goa.- after all we have more than 400 years of history .
   MP – Yes, we intend to gather the history of each church in Goa and how, who, when and what caused it to be built. Thus we preserve the culture and history, which in turn make the younger generation proud of its heritage. Today’s advancement in technology, one can download the video on to the I-phone, I-pad, Blackberry and MP3. One will be able to say the rosary while travelling in a car, on bus, at a park, in bed and even at the funeral wakes

6. GVC - Where will the funding come from?
   MP –  If you mean for the future, I am hoping the various seniors groups in GTA and other social groups will find it in their heart to allocate funds each year, on the same level spent for say, Casino-trips, dances, picnics and pilgrimage trips etc.

7. GVC – Will the support of Goan organizations over the world be forthcoming?
   MP –  Yes off course, Panjim is ready and will be taping the Luminous mysteries. In Melbourne Australia, interest is very strong. UK and US, I have faith, they will come through. I have no responses from Middle East yet. In next few months we should have videos from various countries.

8. GVC Michael thanks for your time – and all the best
   
   Deu Borem Korum. Amchea dhaktulea kortubani mog vaddoya. Devache Ashirwad

Jesus' Death Brought to Life by The Salesian Family
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gulf-goans/message/29119
Written by Gasper Almeida Saturday, 03 April 2010 13:30

Kuwait:- The 'Salesian Family' comprising of the Don Bosco Past Pupils' Association (DBPPA), Salesian Cooperators, Don Bosco Oratory (DBO) and IEAS teachers, touched the hearts and brought tears to the eyes of the 400 odd spectators, gathered at the IEAS Quadrangle on Friday, 26th March 2010. They brought the 'Passion of Jesus' to life with their soul-stirring presentation entitled, 'The Last Journey - A Meditative walk with our Lord from Praetorian to Calvary'. The presentation, which included an enactment and meditations on the 'stations of the Cross' caused many in the audience to remark that 'it was almost like seeing the real Jesus walking to his death along the Via Dolorosa'.

The actors, readers and narrators executed their roles to perfection. The multi-media presentation along with the prayers and hymns led by the choir made an indelible impact on the crowd. An appropriate sound track and Superior sound and light systems along with stage sets and huge display screens helped to amplify the message of the 'Last Journey'. Encouraged by the tremendous response, the DBPPA, which conceptualized this event, has decided to include this event as an annual feature.

For more pics see: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gulf-goans/message/29119 

Moving beyond stereotypes of family violence in South Asian communities in the Greater Toronto Area

Aruna Papp
Aruna Papp shares her experience with an abusive marriage, and talks about her work counselling men and their families. Listen (runs 7:23)
http://www.cbc.ca/toronto/media/audio/popup_audio.html?
http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/toronto/ondemand/audio/mar29aruna_TOR.wma

Baldev Mutta
The Executive Director of Punjabi Community Health Services in Peel discusses new reports on spousal tensions. Listen (runs 8:03)
http://www.cbc.ca/toronto/features/familyviolence

Parkinson’s patients improve with innovative Waterloo program
April 04, 2010 | By Johanna Weidner, Record staff
Excerpt of article from Waterloo Record

Photo by David Bebee, Record staff
Dr. Quincy Almeida, associate professor of the department of kinesiology and physical education goes through the SAFEx program with participant Dr. Bill Watson at Wilfrid Laurier University's Movement Disorders Research and Rehabilitation Centre.

WATERLOO - Bill Watson thought he was managing OK with Parkinson’s, at least until the Cambridge man joined a special exercise program designed to reduce symptoms of the debilitating disease.

Then he realized just how much better he was moving after just a few weeks. “I noticed what I would call a fairly dramatic improvement,” said the 57-year-old. “I’m much more flexible. I’m much more capable in my movements.” Best of all, he’s far more able to do the tasks of daily life, even something as basic as walking up and down the stairs of his home.

Watson is enlisted in the innovative exercise program developed at the Sun Life Financial Movement Disorders Research and Rehabilitation Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University. The centre’s goal, explained director and associate professor Quincy Almeida, is using research and rehabilitation to immediately benefit Parkinson’s patients — to improve the lives of people like Watson.

Recently published research shows their specially designed exercises do just that. People with Parkinson’s disease who joined the 12-week program experienced significant improvements in skills affected by the neurological disease, such as walking, balance and co-ordination.

And when they were assessed again weeks later, those benefits lingered. The disease’s progression had been slowed. “This is certainly a first for exercise rehabilitation,” Almeida said. It’s perhaps the best hope for Parkinson’s patients as there has been little progress in combating the disease. “There’s no identified drug that slows the progression of Parkinson’s,” Almeida said.

April is Parkinson’s disease awareness month. More than 100,000 Canadians have Parkinson’s disease, and people as young as 30 can be affected.

Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disease where cells producing the chemical that carries signals controlling movement between nerves in the brain die. The most common symptoms are tremor, slowness and stiffness, impaired balance and rigidity of the muscles. Other symptoms include fatigue, soft speech, stooped posture and sleep disturbances.

Almeida will share the centre’s latest research at a public talk on April 9 on the Laurier campus. The idea for the exercise program came from earlier research that lead the centre’s experts to look differently at a severe symptom of Parkinson’s. Freezing is when a person can’t move from where they’re standing.

“Their feet literally feel like they’re stuck to the ground and they can’t lift them,” Almeida said. It was thought the impairment was caused by the brain not properly sending signals to the body to move. The centre’s findings, which will be published this month in another journal, suggest the problem could be caused by sensory and perceptual issues. “This freezing may not actually be a problem in the brain,” Almeida said. That’s how they got the idea to design a rehabilitation program that tackles sensory perception to help Parkinson’s patients with movement difficulties — “exercise that helps you co-ordinate how your limbs are moving,” he said.

Basically, the patients perform specific exercises with their eyes closed to retrain their body how to do certain movements. One group in the study did the exercises with their eyes closed and the other with open eyes.

“The group that had done everything with their eyes closed was much better off,” Almeida said. Certainly Watson noticed how movements, such as lunges were far more difficult when he closed his eyes. His body had to figure out how to do the movement when it could no longer depend on visual cues. Participants didn’t just improve in those practised movements, but also in functional measures of how they do in daily activities. For instance, researchers measured the time it took a person to stand up from a chair, take a few steps and then back to the chair. That’s simple for an average person, but a challenging set of movements for someone suffering with Parkinson’s.

Researchers also studied strength training exercises and found that while benefits came with strengthening exercises for Parkinson’s, they were temporary. Many types of exercise have been attempted with Parkinson’s patients, most having no measurable effect on the disease’s symptoms, Almeida said.

Today’s medication can only mask symptoms to help people function better in daily life. The centre’s purpose is finding rehabilitation techniques that are scientifically proven, and then sharing that information across the country to help Parkinson’s patients enjoy a better quality of life.

“Our goal was to find something that people would eventually be able to do in their home.”

Goan Archives Canada – Pic of the Week
Book Jacket Design by Alex Tavares of “The General is Up” Author Peter Nazareth
http://www.amazon.com/General-Up-Peter-Nazareth
This review is from: The General Is Up (Paperback)

A demented army general takes power in a land-locked country in East Africa, and orders the expulsion of an entire race claiming that God has ordered him to do so.

As the Expulsion countdown clock ticks away, the "East Indians" run helter-skelter in search of a new country and a new identity. But the "East Indian" protagonist, David Da Costa, who is something of an African patriot, is sure his citizenship of the country will exempt him from the Expulsion order, which he imagines is largely aimed at Indians with British nationality. In the course of trying to verify his status, he discovers the plight of his own Goan community - a minority within a minority - at pains to be different, yet lumped in with the "East Indians." While the General tightens his grip of terror over the country, one shadowy Goan figure is already plotting his own, personal revenge.The novelist Francis Ebejer said of this book: (Sunday Times, Malta, 1985)

The General is Up is compulsive reading, totally engrossing. A particular time and place joins up with timelessness to produce literature. While it is certainly a political novel, it is, thanks to Nazareth the creative artist, art and novel first, the transformation of experience into destiny. Again, if politics reflects human passions, then the human content comes over strongly. Nazareth skilfully applies the right focus on a very human dilemma, without sacrificing the broader issues, and with the aid of characters that seem to have been wrested from silence and the night to appear in full and recognisable dimension."