JOWAI – BOSCO PNAR

BOSCO PNAR – JOWAI

(Estd. 1990 – C 2006) INS 07; Bosco Pnar; Jowai, Meghalaya – 793150

Brief History

            Jowai, the headquarters of Jaintia Hills, is one of the earliest Catholic centres in the region. The land on which the church and the presbytery of the Catholic mission stand today was bought by Mgr. Louis Mathias in an auction in February 1922. Jowai was the first mission district started by the Salesians in Northeast India. It was opened in March 1926 by Fr. Dominic Farina and Fr. Mariano Uguet. The FMA sisters reached Jowai in the same year. The church dedicated to St. Theresa of Child Jesus blessed by Mgr. Mathias on 16 December 1934. The mission district of Jowai made steady progress in the following decades and several new Parishes were born in the region. The Parish of Jowai was passed on to the hands of the diocesan clergy in the year 1976.

In 1990, under the initiative of Fr. Ugo Turco, there began in a small way a centre to impart job oriented skills for the youth of the region. It was christened Bosco Pnar. The centre visualised the twin aspects: training and production (with a view to economic sustainability). Initially, with the small infrastructure, few courses such as driving, mechanics, welding and typing began. The tailoring section that had begun came to an abrupt close due to lack of candidates.

In 2006, the Salesian community of Bosco Pnar was canonically recognized under the patronage of St. John Bosco. The community consisted of Fr. Tulugi Nicholas (Rector), Br. Dkhar Pascal (Director of VT), Fr. Pakma Kenny (Vice Rector and Warden), Fr. Ugo Turco and two other clerics doing college studies at Jowai.

With the addition of new infrastructure more courses are introduced. The courses that are organized in 2008 are Driving, Motor Mechanics, House Wiring, Welding, Carpentry, Typing, Computer and Electronics. The courses are of various modules and of duration from three months up to one year.

Bosco Pnar – situated in the fast-developing township of Jowai with a big Catholic population and youth in the region, holds out opportunity for greater development for a typical Salesian ministry.

Statistics (till September, 2016)

School

A small school, from Nursery to Class VI is looked after by the house. It has at present 89 students. The school is located at about 10 minutes’ walk from the house. It is run purely on the fees collected from the students.

 Statistics as in 2017