ALLWYN FERNANDES PASSES AWAY, CHURCH AND CIVIL SOCIETY MOURN THE LOSS OF A BRAVEHEART by John Dayal

ALLWYN FERNANDES PASSES AWAY, CHURCH AND CIVIL SOCIETY MOURN THE LOSS OF A BRAVEHEART

                                                                                                                  -by JOHN DAYAL

ALLWYN FERNANDES, veteran journalist, communication consultant and lay Catholic activist, expired late on Tuesday evening in Mumbai after a two year battle with cancer which he fought as tenaciously as he had fought many social ills in his long and distinguished career.

He is survived by his  wife Enid, children Rohini and Rohan. He is mourned by a large circle of friends in the Media, Politics, civil society and  management circles, including a large number of students he mentored over the decades. His death was announced in social media by Fr Cedric Prakash, SJ, the noted human rights activist and a close friend.

Allwyn Fernandes, born 1 June 1948, headed the Media Practice and conducts Media and Crisis Management Training for Edelman India Pvt. Ltd. Drawing on his 25 years of media experience with The Times of India, Mumbai,  where he held several senior positions, he has been counseling a wide range of global clients on media strategy and sensitivity for almost 20 years. He headed the Communications Skills Training for company spokespersons, Crisis Management Training for senior management and media awareness sessions for key executives, helping them to understand what media is looking for and avoid needless conflict.

Allwyn  conducted media training sessions for senior management of several global and Indian companies including the Tata Group, GE, Citibank, J&J, Wal-Mart, Audi, Mercedes-Benz and technology companies like Yahoo!

Besides media  training, Allwyn was been involved in several crisis management situations and public affairs campaigns that involved spokespersons training. He was invited to share his experiences on "Biotechnology in Asian Agriculture – Generating Public Support" at the Asian Agriculture Congress at Manila in April 2001.

Allwyn majored in Physics-Mathematics from St Xavier’s College (Bombay University in 1969) and then did his journalism from Bhavan’s College of Mass Communication and the International Institute for Journalism in Berlin.

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