Fr. Varghese Mattamana takes over as new Executive Director of Caritas India

(April 28, 2006) : Fr. Varghese Mattamana took charge as the 9th Executive Director of Caritas India on Thursday April 27th. Along with him Fr. Frederick D’Souza also took charge as the Assistant Executive Director. In his first interview after taking over as the new Executive Director of Caritas India, Fr. Varghese Mattamana said, as a ‘multi-sector-focus’ organization, the biggest challenge of Caritas is to emerge as a frontline leader in the Indian Development Community. Asked what future he visualized for the key stakeholders of Caritas India as mentioned in the statement ‘the poor and marginalized’, Fr. Mattmana said, We will make every effort to facilitate the empowerment of the people through their own advocacy, with the local governance and influencing policies at the wider levels. In this respect, as a National Organisation of the Church in India, we have to discover our role as ‘collaborator’ and facilitator in the Social Movements in the country. In fact, internally displaced people are one of our critical constituency. I certainly visualize a positive change, Fr. Mattamana said.