Hazaribagh
At the JAAI National Congress held in Patna on 10-12th February 2023, the JAAI Governing Council made a contribution towards the upcoming school building of St Xavier's Middle School, Tenuahi, Tatidiri, Dhurky block, Garhwa District, Jharkhand State, India.
In the background of the attached pictures you see the school, at the foreground are the children who literally came to us when there was no roof to conduct the classes.
The paticularly (primitive) vulnerable Korwa Communities live in these villages who are at the lowest rungs in our country.
From Hazaribag Province, our JAAI's Patron Fr Robert Slattery S. J. , Fr. R C Chacko S. J. Fr Provincial Vincent Hansdak S. J. convey deep gratitude and appreciation for the donation of one lakh towards the school building project.
After nearly 60 years in the Indian province of Hazaribag, Australia-born Father Bob Slattery has truly found home. With his tall, lean and thin figure, wearing round glasses and carrying his prized possession — a cloth bag around his shoulder — Father Bob Slattery is not difficult to identify. The Australia-born Jesuit, who has been in India for nearly 60 years, continues his work among socially oppressed Dalits and ethnic minority people in the Hazaribag region of eastern India. The 83-year old landed in 1958 in this area, now part of Jharkhand state, where the Jesuit Hazaribag Province is based. “I volunteered for India because as a Jesuit I thought it would be good to serve the poor,” said Father Slattery, currently development director of the Hazaribag province.
On 5 August 2014, the birthday of Fr. John Moore s.j, the founder of the school, it ran a blood donation camp. In 2014, it inaugurated a weekly medical clinic. Now every Sunday from 3 to 5 in the afternoon, the clinic is open and at least one doctor is present. Medicines are also provided free. Many who have visited the clinic also reported having got some good advice from the doctor. The school has given rooms in one of its buildings for the Hoxa clinic.