By Fr Gregory D’Almeida for BIS Mumbai

The DB Avsar Online Meeting was conducted on September 4, 2025 and chaired by the Director of DB Avsar, Mumbai Province, Fr Gregory D’Almeida and attended by Provincial Fr Savio Silveira and DB Avsar participants of the 5 houses where this project has been taken up, along with the National Director of DB- JPN, Fr Gaberial K and DB Vazzikatti Director, Fr Joe Anand of Chennai province.

Fr Silveira, set the tone for the meeting, by reminding us how Don Bosco began his ministry by giving hope to young people by starting skills training and education and how Pope Francis in proclaiming the Jubilee year 2025, stressed the need to use the Jubilee year as renewed hope for young people. Fr Savio expressed his happiness that the DB Avsar project has been taken up by the Mumbai Province.

 The next speaker was Fr P. Gabriel Karunaraj, the National Director of Job Placement Network (DB JPN). He shared details of the hub and spoke of the nature of the DB JPN where some centres were a source and other centres in big cities served as destination points. He also shared that the Job Placement Network is supported by a digital platform (donboscojobs.org) and a mobile app (JOBS DBI).  Both these digital services are currently being revamped to incorporate government guidelines and upgrade security of these platforms. They are working on creating another app for career guidance for school and college students and are also working on a web portal for those preparing for government exams with study material and mock tests. He assured that his office would be happy to support and capacitate and strengthen DB Avsar project in the Mumbai Province.   

 Fr Joe Anand, the Director of Vazikatti, Chennai province, shared with us how they are carrying out the placement and career guidance programs in their province.  The career guidance programs disseminate information to students of the 9, 10, and 11, for subject and career choices as well as entrance exams related to specific academic streams and also about government schemes and scholarships. Counselling and guidance are done both online and offline. Trainings are conducted among youth for soft skills and work place readiness as well as digital skills. Some skill trainings CSR initiatives are also carried out. To connect with the youth, they also extensively used the digital platforms.  Fr Anand urged all centers of the Bombay province to have a good presence in digital media platforms as the youth of today are heavy digital consumers.

 After the insightful presentations of Fr Karunaraj and Fr Anand, each of the centres presented their annual plans. Fr D’Almeida thanked all the attendees, for sharing their plans and requested that all DB Avsar centres nominate or appoint a coordinator who will be the contact point for internal center and province office communication.  He also urged all to make a monthly plan and take forth this ministry.

 The Provincial Fr Silveira thanked everyone for the fruitful meeting and reminded us that the word AVSAR so aptly stands for the opportunity in jobs that the youth are eagerly seeking.