FOURTH ANNUAL JOINT RELIGIOUS CLASS

ZAGNY – ZAPANJ – ZAGBA – ZAMWI

Saturday, September 14, 2019

Our Joint religious class with ZAPANJ, ZAGBA, ZAMWI and ZAGNY is scheduled for Saturday, Sept 14th at our New York Dar-e-Mehr.

ZAGNY again looks forward to welcoming the children and adults from our sister organizations for this much anticipated annual event.

AGENDA

11:00am – 12:00 noon: ZAPANJ, ZAGBA, ZAMWI and ZAGNY start arriving.

12:00 – 1:00 PM: Meet and Greet, Tour the building for newcomers. Visitors may visit the Prayer Hall for prayers. Light snacks and other refreshments served.

1:00 PM: Prayer Circle Time. All participants join together for a Humbandagi.

1:15 PM: Aatash Nyaesh for the kids in the Prayer Hall with mobeds from all 4 associations.

1:30 PM – 3:00 PM: Combined Children’s Religion Classes. Kids of various age-groups go to the allocated classrooms.

1:30 PM – 3:00 PM: Adult Talk/Discussion in main hall. Video interview by Porus Cooper with Dinshaw Tamboly followed by a Q & A moderated by Porus.

3:00 PM: Lunch and Play time.

4:30 PM: Disperse

About the Talk/Discussion

The joint religion class of September 14, 2019, will feature video of an interview with Dinshaw K. Tamboly, whose long and varied experience working on behalf of Zarthostis in India gives him a unique perspective on the situation of the community there. Tamboly is chairman of the World Zoroastrian Organization Trust and related nonprofits, a network of community uplift programs based in Mumbai. He also is a former trustee of the Bombay Parsi Panchayat, where he served from the 1990s to the early 2000s. That was a particularly turbulent time on the board, though that could be said of other recent times as well.

Under the World Zoroastrian Organization Trust’s umbrella, he and his collaborators – with the aid of donors that include the Hong Kong anjuman and FEZANA – have created numerous programs to assist indigent or otherwise needy members of the community and senior citizens. The trusts also are partners in the Indian government’s Jiyo Parsi program.

Talking to Porus P. Cooper, a veteran journalist who is a member of the Zoroastrian Association of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, he discusses the work of the nonprofits he leads, his time on the Panchayat, and some of the challenges and controversies that continue to envelop that body. He also offers some sobering insights on the future of the community in India.