YCS PERNAL, CELEBRATES ENVIRONMENT DAY

Report : Sr. Pauline, YCS Animator

Date :Wednesday, June 19, 2024

On 05 June, we celebrated World Environment Day with a focus on land restoration under the
slogan Our Land, Our Future. To deepen this theme and give a creative response, the YCS
Pernal Unit, marked 16 June as Environment Day.
During the Mass, we offered a Neem Tree Plant and blessed it. Neem tree is medicinal and air
purifier. We are grateful to Irene Mam and Mr. Joakim Mendonca for sponsoring the Neem plant
for us. Immediately after the Mass we planted it in the church compound behind the grotto. It
was followed by a session with Mrs. Jane Quadras, our parishioner on Environmental Concerns
and our possible response.
She began the session with the issue of global warming, with its causes and consequences on our
mother earth and on human beings. She invited us to ask ourselves: “What have I done?”
Although an Engineer by profession, during COVID 19 lockdown, her passion, concern for
mother earth gave expression. She shared with us all that she and her family have been doing
ever since. We cannot stop the climate crisis today; we cannot turn back time, she said; but we
can grow plants, forests, revive water sources, and bring back soils. We are the generation that can
make peace with land. She motivated us to plant more trees, in our compounds, homes or even in
forest. The session was very enriching.
We are indeed very grateful to Frs. Jerome and Pascal who showed keen interest in our program and
accompanied us throughout the event.