Infant Jesus school based in South Goa in a small village called Colva. There are many private schools in Goa, many of them affiliated with the Catholic Church. Most of them hold their classes in the English language. The benefits of education are apparent to even the lower-caste villagers, who enroll their children in free, government-run primary schools. English and Konkani are the languages of instruction, and Marathi is sometimes being taught as a third language. Most students in Goa, however, complete their high school using English as the medium of instruction. Primary schools, on the other hand are largely run in Konkani. As is the case in most of India, enrollment for vernacular media has seen a fall in numbers in favor of English medium education.

I named my short-term project “Children of Goa” because that is the name of the foreign language learning centre located in Benaulim, Goa (India). This center was opened by a woman named Margaret. She is fluent in five languages and teaches these languages to the children of Goa.

«Children of Goa» is a private initiative of Margaret. She works there every day and teaches about 30 children of various ages. The learning process takes place in a small room about four meters long. Some children study outside on the porch due to lack of space inside.

Goa became Catholic by way of Portuguese missionaries. Goan Catholics are an ethno-religious community of Indian Christians belonging to the Latin Church of the Catholic Church from the Goa state, in the southern part of the Konkan region along the west coast of India. They are Konkani people and speak the Konkani language.

During this photo project I was lucky enough to attend a children's liturgy at the Holy Trinity Church. This church is one of the two Goan churches located in Benaulim. The Other Benaulim Church being the St John the Baptist Church. Pastor Anthony has started preaching at Holy Trinity Church just couple month ago. And some of the parishioners moved to this church from another with him. 

Catholic children's liturgy is a very interesting part of the Sunday Catholic Mass. The process looks like this. First, the padre conducts mass for the adult parishioners. Then all adult parishioners go up to the second floor of the church and watch how the whole church is filled with children of different ages (from about 6 to 14 years old). Children are dressed according to the dress code - very bright and elegant. There were about a hundred and twenty children there when I photographed the mass.