Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Mumbai (Agenzia Fides) - For some years now the Catholic Church in India has given priority attention to increasing its presence in the media which offer new forums for evangelisation.
This intuition led the local Church to give full support to a new Tej-Prasarini Media Centre launched by the Salesian Fathers in Mumbai. Tej-Prasarini, or 'Diffusing Light' is a Centre for both multimedia production and training.
Director Joaquim Fernandes says “the Centre began in 1991 as an audiocassette service to support catechists in rural Christian areas of Maharashtra. Later it merged with the Salesian Centre for Catechesis in Pune and in 1993 the Centre made its official site in Mumbai still regarded as India's “media capital” . Here it began to expand, becoming a centre for multimedia production for the Salesians in Mumbai producing material in English, Hindi and Marathi, on catechetics, pedagogical issues, education to the media, humanistic-religious subjects, education to peace. The material produced serves educators and religious institutes Christian and non.
According to the September 2007 issue of the Salesian Bulletin, Tej-Prasarini began training programmes to develop creativity and critical awareness with regard to the use of the media. It networked with schools and other centres of education, sustaining religious and state teachers in their work of educating with modern means.
To meet the ever growing request for audio-visual material the Salesians opened Tej-Kiran (Ray of Light) recording studios and in 2004 the Bosco Information Service.
It continued to produce music (bhajans, prayers set to music ) in Hindi and English, but - as Fernandes says , “one of its most successful initiatives was Quality Life Education Series, available for peoples of all religions. Each volume of the series has a session ready for educators who need only apply it using an interactive method. This successful initiative recently drew the attention of the government education observatory.
In 2001 Tej-Prasarini was invited to collaborate with UNICEF to promote awareness among school pupils with regard to AIDS. The Centre organises capacity building workshops for young people in various fields: speaking in public, dance, music, drama, elocution and film, production. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 12/9/2007 righe 33 parole 347)
