By C V Joseph
Bengaluru: A Catholic college in Bengaluru collaborated with an NGO and Muslim leaders to celebrate Bakrid for the children of foster homes.
More than 400 children from various Foster Homes took part in the August 26 celebration.
Dream India Network organized the program at Mount Carmel PU College in Bengaluru, capital city of Karnataka.
Several religious leaders, city major, members of legislative assembly and council, collaborators, supporters, benefactors and well-wishers of Dream India Network got together on the occasion.
The celebration also expressed solidarity with the flood-affected people of Karnataka and Kerala.
Taha Mateen, a physician and a social worker who addressed the gathering, said it was wonderful and great to see God’s work done in unity and oneness of mind. “If this is not God’s work and if it is not God’s people (the Foster Home team), then what it is,” he added.
Mateen, who runs a charity hospital, said Bakrid was a day of love of a different kind. He urged the children to love God above all and to love parents whole-heartedly besides loving others. He spoke of the cost of love, saying heart pains when ‘we love each other.’ The very spirit of festival is loving each other, he aid and pointed out the competition involved in love. However, the one deserving the highest love is the creator himself.
Referring to the Bakrid celebration, Mateen said Abraham loved God and was ready to sacrifice his only son. As such, Bakrid is celebrated in the name of Prophet Abraham for both Christianity and Muslim. Abraham loved God the most. Mateen urged all to celebrate Bakrid in the spirit of love for God more than anything else and the celebration is meaningless if that love demonstrated in the sacrifice for God is absent.
Sr Ashwini, principal, Mount Carmel PU College, exhorted the children to follow Mother Teresa of Kolkata to celebrate the great sacrifice hidden in the celebrations. Mother Teresa, an incarnation of God for service and sacrifice practiced what she stood for. Sr Ashwini intoned ‘words of wisdom’ and the children repeated after her.
The nun said their college also joined Dream India Network for the cause of children. She said the college collected many items and sent to the flood victims in Coorg in Karnataka. She said people are willing to help children.
Fr Anthony Swamy, chancellor and public relations officer of Bangalore archdiocese, expressed happiness to see the good will of people around. He said Father Edward Thomas and team made great sacrifice to run the foster homes.
Bangalore Mayor Sampath Raj said the children in foster homes would be part of the team that shapes future India. He assured shelters for the children wherever required on identifying places and building houses.
Sowmya Reddy, who represent Jayanagar in the state legislative assembly, lauded the work of DIN. She assured to build houses for the children and promised to collaborate with the NGO and other government agencies.
N A Haris, another legislator, said stressed the need for people to rediscover the humanness in them. “Whether it is mosque, church or temple, one needs to be a human person in order to help others in need,” he added.
Earlier, Fr Thomas, welcoming the gathering, said people from the west rushed to India to benefit from the spirituality of India, its brotherhood, oneness and the unity in diversity. Fr Thomas, who currently directs the Missing Child Bureau of the Karnataka government’s Women and Child Development, bemoans the tendency among some people to use every opportunity to divide India.
“God asks us to love and no religion asks us to divide. We come to pray together in love and unity,” Fr Thomas noted.
. Amidst applause, he said “we will create these children to stand for unity” and they will take the symbol of God which is love.
“Religion is to unite and not to divide. All have come together to celebrate the Bakrid celebration,” he added.