On 5th and 6th November we took an active part in the Archdiocesan initiative, the National Youth Talent Festival. Organized by the Diocesan Youth Centre, we got involved as soon as we could by  attending meetings they organized and trying to involve the youth we knew from our contacts as much as possible.
Four of the Daughters of St Paul participated in the core-group meeting and after that we kept the community informed and got them interested in participating in this event which seemed to be one of a kind. It was not only geared to discovering the talents of the youth from all over the country but Fr Anthony Fernandes and Fr. Walter D’Souza the Director and Assistant of the DYC, wanted to use it as a way to promote vocations to the religious life and priesthood. Innovative methods were suggested by them, some of which had their inspiration from World Youth Day held in Madrid , Spain recently, which both of them had participated in with many youth from the Archdiocese of Bombay.
On 5th November ,  for almost the whole day we along with 14 other Congregations had put up stalls where we invited the youth who were in involved in this festival to come and play games, free of charge. These were small interesting games which were simple to play. Those who won were given some free gifts.

As Paulines , we gave them some well-chosen books, fit for youth , based on relationships and communications with God and people. Many youth took part in our game. Besides this our novices under guidance of their mistress put up a puppet show on two songs fit for youth. These were about 4 minute each, and were done at intervals of one hour or so, whenever it was conducive. 2 of the novices also dressed up as Penguins with a banner of Daughters of St Paul on themselves. This was a major attraction and many youth were clicking photos with them. Each stall had a huge poster planned and designed by our Sisters, of about 12 feet length which was based on the charism of the congregation.  This too had to be very simple with minimal mention of the congregation’s identity and more focus on the invitation of Jesus to service of God’s people.
On 6th November, we attended the finals of the Talent contest. This too was a classic combination of talent, organization, and zeal all put together. Emeritus Bishop Percival Fernandes released the Diary of the Year 2012 cum Souvenir in which one page was sponsored by us, with the words, ‘Pauline Publications and Communications, where the Word meets the world.”
For all of us at Bandra community it was a participative effort towards vocation promotion. We also printed one book mark specially for this occasion which has Pope Benedict’s appeal to youth on one side and an invitation to youth to join us as members or collaborators, on the other side.