July 28, 2020

Prof Clement’s funeral was held on the July 27, 2020, 10 days after his sudden death during the early hours of Friday, July 17. We never ever thought that Prof Clement who attended the meeting of the Care Pachanady Core Team on the July 11 at 4 pm and explained with his usual enthusiasm, the rain water harvesting methods that he had propagated in various institutions and houses in Mangaluru and returned home to take his online NLP classes at 6 pm, and who was in touch with one or the other member of our team until the July 16, 2020, would be no more.

From the time he joined me and Laveena Noronha, in facilitating the process of establishing Ave Maria Palliative Care as a functionally autonomous unit of Center for Development Studies and Education (CEDSE), almost 12 years ago, Prof Clement extended his whole hearted support in all our initiatives sustained over decades or newly planned. Realising that CEDSE was a reluctant fund raiser, Prof Clement Dsouza, not only motivated his concerned friends but also his NLP learners to contribute for the initiatives of CEDSE. He brought in his open minded friends like Mrs Lena Noronha to us, who helped us augment the infrastructural facilities in the present CEDSE premises.

Prof Clement introduced us to Naveen Dsouza, another person committed to the cause of Cancer affected children which led to the evolution of Childhood Cancer Programme, initially at the Wenlock Hospital, Mangaluru with the active support and guidance from the reputed Paediatrician Dr BS Baliga and later at KMC Hospital Attavar and Father Muller Medical College Hospital, Mangaluru. He was a regular at periodic meetings held at all these hospitals and at CEDSE and an active member of the governing body of advisors constituted to further strengthen this programme and take it forward with the
support of medical and other experts and concerned persons such as Herald Moras.

We were also working to develop a project, a brainchild of Prof Clement to establish a Golden Age Home for the elderly people in CEDSE premises. As advised by highly experienced and socially committed Engineer Mr Christopher Dsouza, who was helping us to design the building plans, we visited along with Prof Clement Dsouza at least 6 homes to study the best practices and challenges faced by those already running such facilities for the elderly. Unfortunately the work on this project was delayed because of the COVID crisis. The ideas he put down on paper on the subject in his beautiful handwriting is with us and will guide us in establishing this venture.

Prof Clement accepted the vision statement of CEDSE namely, a society based on Justice, Healing and Sustainable Development as his own and saw the need for moving beyond the symptom - centric approaches to social development. He was also aware that the outcomes of the justice centric and policy advocacy work that CEDSE is engaged in with focus on the marginalised groups such as women farmers cum street vendors and issues such as gender and other forms of discrimination cannot be openly demonstrated.

An open minded learner that Prof Clement was, gradually acquired competencies in NLP and other modern and traditional healing therapies such as Pranic Healing, Sujok, Yoga, Super Brain Yoga which he sought to popularise through his training and healing work. He was committed to build a team of NLP trainers at CEDSE and provided all of us including our staff and volunteers inclusive of the students of social work from different Social Work colleges who were placed at CEDSE for their social work practicum (field based learning) opportunities to learn NLP and other therapeutic healing techniques by inviting us to attend the training programmes he conducted in his home and at CEDSE premises. These sessions were a growth enhancing experience for all of us. He was committed to build an up-to-date NLP training material documentation facility at CEDSE and contributed copies of training volumes and other related materials to the CEDSE library. He had also started writing articles to disseminate information on NLP, one of which was published by Daijiworld.

The training and healing programmes that he conducted for the marginalized farmer women and men from villages of Mangaluru and Bantwal that CEDSE is working with and for the Vamanjoor residents were useful and highly appreciated. The workshops that he helped organise by involving Pranic Healing experts such as Mohandas Baliga and his team as well as Prof Vrashabharaj Jain for volunteers and social workers at CEDSE and the pranic healing sessions organised for the residents in the vicinity of Pachanady landfill site were very beneficial for the participants. We have personally seen the
effectiveness of the healing techniques that he practiced to enable people inclusive of children and women to get rid of their own phobias and traumas.

More recently he willingly accepted our request to join the Care Pachanady Core team (CPCT), an initiative of a group of institutions such as St Joseph’s Engineering College, Vamanjoor, St Aloysius College, Mangalore, School of Social Work, Roshni Nilaya, CEDSE, Kudupu, Disha Trust, Kaikamba and Anti-Pollution Drive Mangaluru and motivated us to build additional components such as rejuvenation of water sources and tree cover into the draft project proposal being drafted to address the Municipal Solid Waste Management issue in collaboration with MCC, civil society groups, people and institutions of Mangaluru.

All of us at CEDSE including Prof Clement shared the belief that the spiritual essence of all the religions is the same, which takes us towards a common quest to see the Divine in every human person and motivates us to work towards asserting the dignity and rights of all human persons irrespective of their position, wealth, gender, caste, religion and ideology and that respect for all creation is essential to nurture the planet Earth.

Our dialogue was also on to evolve another significant holistic healing initiative at CEDSE by combing the attributes of our vision statement namely Justice, Healing and Sustainable Development.

A genuine, humane and friendly and competent person like Prof Clement will not be physically present with us to take forward such initiatives which are based on the strong belief that there is one humanity and one planet and all have to put our minds, hands and spirits together to nurture, sustain and nourish the two. We are sure Prof Clement’s prayers will be with us in this earthy mission that can only succeed with divine blessings and collaboration of all.

Prof Clement, we at CEDSE thank you immensely for all that you have been and done for us. We want to say to the beloved family members of Prof Clement that no words are enough to console you. We pray that the Divine spirit be with you and guide you through this painful times. May Prof Clement find peace and joy in his heavenly abode.

Dr Rita Noronha, her team members and many volunteers of CEDSE (The Centre for Development, Studies and Education (R)) had the privilege of knowing, learning from and working with Prof Clement D'Souza.