MARGAO
Chinchinim-born Gerson Gomes and Navelim’s Ivan D’Sa are alumni of Perpetual Succour Convent High School who excelled for their school athletic team and thereafter at the Higher Secondary School, college, university and the State teams.
They are just a couple of students from the Navelim school who took their talent to the next level with the limited infrastructure facilities at the school available some four decades back.
Turn to the present and Gerson, a political activist and member of the Chinchinim village panchayat, does not want the current bunch of students at the school to go through the same fate of lack of top-notch facilities.
After a proposal from the school headmistress, Sister Libby Fernandes, came along, Gerson joined forces with the school management in a fund-raising drive which the school has launched recently.
With Perpetual Succour Convent HS getting an artificial sports turf, Navelim village situated on the outskirts of Margao will have more sporting infrastructure at the disposal of its sportspersons in the days ahead if plans see the light of day.
According to school sources, the management has launched a drive to raise an amount of Rs 1,13,26,442 which is needed to complete the project. Of the existing sports infrastructure in the heart of Navelim village is the Rosary Sports Complex which houses a football ground which is used by the Rosary School students as well as by the Higher Secondary School and Rosary College students, while a host of inter-village football tournaments besides second, third division and age group matches of Goa Football Association take place at the ground.
The Goa Football Development Council coaching also takes place at the same venue. Navelim has also an indoor complex named after the late Manohar Parrikar situated close to the Margao Railway station and the South Goa district library. The complex plays host to basketball, badminton, handball and taekwondo and hosted several sports events during last year’s National Games hosted by Goa.
A kilometre away the Sports Authority of Goa ground at Nagmodem is crying for attention while in sharp contrast the SAG ground at Sinquetim which, under Enfermous Sports Club, Navelim, is in top shape.
