Justice and Peace Commission is the organ of the province entrusted with the task of aligning the knowledge, skills and attitudes of the members of the province to the prophetic task entrusted to them by Jesus, our Lord and Don Bosco, our founder. “He has anointed me to preach to preach the Good News to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to give new sight to the blind to free the oppressed and announce the Lord’s year of mercy” (Lk.4:18-19).
Justice and Peace Commission has gone about this task entrusted to it by animating the members of the province on issues related to Justice and Peace, reaching out through them to the rest of the Salesian Family, Lay Collaborators and the people we accompany. Animation has been done directly by the Commission itself and also by interacting with the other commissions especially the Commissions for Formation, Schools, Mission, and Development. The programmes included the animation for Rectors and Parish Priests on Secular Democracy and legislations in favour of the poor, seminars for teachers, students on Secular Democracy, Human Right Education, Contextualisation of Preaching of the Word for Catechists and Elders of the Catholic Communities. JPC also reached out to the State CRI and also to Justice and Peace Forum of Andhra Pradesh religious to acquaint them with the government legislations beneficial to the poor especially with regard to labour and employment and right to information.
Information regarding issues related to Justice and Development were regularly circulated especially through Telugu Biweekly – Maro Malupu and also through articles in the Kabrulu. Inputs were also given for the formulation of guidelines for responding to sexual abuse/violence against children in our institutions.
JPC also partnered with Sakshi and People’s Watch Institute of Human Rights Education in introducing HRE in 50 government schools and 20 Salesian Family schools. The students also participated in the National Campaign by children on government accountability by joining the “9 is Mine” signature campaign. As part of the HRE students and teachers also took part in Indian Social Forum at Delhi. JPC was also able to give inputs to BSK while finalizing the CBO project and also help BSK to access and network with other organizations in response to Tsunami. In this process it was possible to help institutions to network with State and National level organizations especially those working for the empowerment of the poor.
JPC has collaborated with DB DIGITS in preparing and updating the Pay Rolls Software, Pagar I and II. This software can be used for minimum wage campaign as well as for paying just wages in our institutions.