The previous week’s incessant rain had ceased. The dawn was bright yesterday, the 25th of October 2024. We considered it a good omen for the Job Fair that PARA had planned with Disha, the Career Guidance and Job Placement service of the St. Joseph’s Province of Hyderabad. The staff of PARA – Mr. Isaiah, Mr. Prabhakar, Mr. Mahima Rao, Mr. Ramesh, Ms.Durga, Mr. Kumar and Mr. Andrew – had done a great job of mobilizing the youth of 4 blocks – Alamuru, Atreyapuram, Ravulapalem, and Kothapetta. Mobilization was done both through social media and through door-to-door distribution of QR Codes for registering for the Job Fair. Their mobilization efforts showed results. From 9.00 am itself, youth from the surroundings came prepared for Job interviews. The stream of job seekers continued till 2.00 pm. Fr. Gandala Simharayulu had made all the logistical arrangements for the fair.
Fr. Jeevan and Fr. Justin from Disha introduced the HRs from Apollo, Health Care, Modine, Fusion Finance, and Future IT Solutions. These corporate entities conducted in-person interviews to select candidates for their companies. Amazon, Flipkart, and Vijetah joined the Job Fair online. Mr. Sagar, and Mr. Kranti, team members of Disha were able to handle the event very effectively. In the final count, 107 young people attended the Job fair. 70 of them were selected for the jobs they were interviewed for.
As the sun set, everyone felt that it was indeed a very rewarding day. Our hope that if a Job Fair was conducted on PARA premises it would benefit the youth in this region was not belied. This was a first for PARA. The first milestone in the Job Fair Initiative. It will not be the last.

People’s Action for Rural Awakening (PARA), had two remarkable days – the 17th and the 18th of October on the occasion of the visit of Rev. Fr. Biju Michael Pulianmackal SDB, the Regional Councillor for South Asia. He was doing the 6 yearly Extra Ordinary Visitation of People’s Action For Rural Awakening. On the 17th he interacted with the Salesian community to review the progress of the spiritual and apostolic life of the community. In the afternoon of the 17th, he visited the office of Oota- Wellsprings, the Psycho-Social Centre of the Salesian Province of Hyderabad, headed by Fr. John Tharakan. In the evening he visited Ekalavya Children’s Home in Rajahmundry, a CCI run by PARA. The children in ECH performed a thought-provoking skit on communal harmony and the dream country they would like to live in. Their performance was followed by a theatre ensemble by the Chindu team from Hyderabad who had trained the children to do their performance. Well-wishers of ECH were also present for the interaction with the Regional Superior. On the 18th Fr. Biju had short sessions with the PARA staff, the Educative Pastoral Community of PARA, and the members of the Child Safeguarding Committee, and Internal Complaints Committee set up as required by the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Work Place (POSH Act), and the Conflict of Interest Committee. The visit concluded with a debriefing by Fr. Biju Michael.

PARA organized an interactive session with district level government officials on MGNREGA, ICDS, Agriculture and Welfare programs. Mr Neelaiah Jyothi, Chairperson of AP NREGS was the guest for the program. community leaders from Alamuru, Atreyapuram, Ravulapalem and Kothapeta attended the training program.

NREGS, nutrition, pre and postnatal care of women, Self Help Groups (SHGs) and women empowerment were the topics that were discussed in the meeting. interaction and clarification of flaws in the laws were clarified.

Training on Learning Disabilities

On 13th September 2024 a training program was held for Primary schools of Alamuru and Kothapeta teachers on “Learning Disabilities” by Dr Sudheer Bhanu from Helen Keller Institute for Deaf, Hyderabad. The session was mainly on identifying children at the early age on learning. Teachers in the schools’ need to identify low ability and wrong learning children at early stages of their life. This training was an advantage for the teachers to identify the children at the earlier age. Teachers from 30 schools attended the training program.