Loreto Nepal shines brightly and stands strong!
Elsie Gabriel
[Elsie Gabriel is the founder of the Young Environmentalists Programme trust NGO and a Climate Reality Mentor trained by former vice President of USA Mr.Al Gore.She is an award winning author, a certified Green teacher and a post graduate in Environment law. She is an alumni of Loreto Convent Asansol and Loreto College Calcutta India where she graduated with honours in the subject of Education, after which she joined the Mass Communication course in Sophias college Mumbai.]
More than forty smiling bright faces welcomed us, at the
Loreto Dharan Nepals Educational
development Center in July 2015 during our social service visit to the center.
The aftermath of the traumatic summer earthquake tremors
were still being felt off and on, but the members of the entire Loreto center
community were holding strong and confident as ever. The Loreto sisters are a
happy and hard working community in Dharan, led by Sister Flora, Sr.Purnima and
Sr.Aruna. You can see concrete results of their dedication and training of the
student community who live with them in the hostel. From academics to behavior
management, the students displayed warm
and active personalities, enriched with love and prayer.
The timetable is well organized for the hostelites to
wake up praying and studying. they also take turns in cooking and cleaning,
which equips them to be better experienced women in the future. The girls later
go to the local afternoon school, very neatly dressed and well groomed.
The sisters of
Nepal also provide educational and private
day care services for ages 1 to 5,helping working and studying mothers from the
local community find extra time.
The center is productive yet involves plenty of challenging
work. We were happy to reach out to the students and talk to them about the
climate change and rehabilitation, the earthquake tremors and its effects .And
that it was all part of nature, we also showed them a Climate Reality
Presentation where they saw disasters from all over the world happening due to
global warming, this helped them see disasters from a more higher perspective
and how it effects people equally all over the world.
We also conducted
a talk on the ‘Productive Cloth bag revolution’, on how each one could make one
and help stay away from the plastic bags. Stitching one also involved art and
craft as well as brought out talent in a person. We distributed cloth bags and silk
scarves for the students to get an idea of the productive work they could also
conduct.
We rewarded some students for good behavior shown throughout the year,
which Sister felt is also an important
part of the learning process for all students.
We as environment social workers focused on a few days of
short but intensely satisfying therapeutic recreation activities for the
children which included gardening activities with sapling plantations and
reinventing the farm by providing piglets, ducks and hens. During these
sessions we found that good team spirit existed.
One could clearly see that the Loreto philosophy of
education in Dharan had founded upon strong behavioral support and student
accountability. We saw a holistic approach to education that provided the
foundation for success and survival in every aspect of a young person’s life,
developing good social and behavioral skills.
We also sang songs with the children after dinner and we
found the children to be very talented and focused.
On the last day we
cooked a special supper for the children on the wood fire. It was a humbling
experience and gave us an insight that the seniors learn to cook here, enabling
them to play active and successful roles in families and society.
The multidisciplinary
approach at The Educational Development Center placed an emphasis on
individual, student-centered learning techniques to help young people complete
grade-appropriate course requirements and fulfill their highest level of
academic achievement. We found that a special mathematics teacher gave tuition
to the students and coached them for the
examinations.
Every night before going to
bed, one would hear hymns in praise of God, sung out with so much love and
dedication, and gratitude towards life. Every night that we joined them, I would
peek through my shut eyes, only to see such innocent faces filled with hope and
love, standing in perfect rows, their eyes tightly closed singing away to
glory, as the stars blessed them from above in the central portico of the
Loreto Fortress.
I encourage you to contact me if you like what you have read about the Loreto Convent Nuns and if you as an alumni could help support the Loreto Convents,it would be great to hear from you. elsiegabriel@gmail.com
What more can one ask for in
the world, the wealth of love and contentment is all that we really need in
life, after all! These are the lessons we came away enriched with. God bless
Loreto!
'Women in time
to come will do much' Mary Ward had
rightly said.
Loreto Chorus
To East and West of that fair Isle
Where the first Loreto stands,
Loreto's banner now doth fly in many distant lands,
In sunny Spain, on Africa's strand and
Under the Southern Cross
And Westward ho, where rainbow hued
Nigeria's waters toss.
CHORUS
Loreto's banner gaily floats
In lands both East and West
Loreto's name each girl reveres
And holds it ever blest.
But first Loreto found a home beneath our
Indian skies
Where now o'er plain and mountain peak
The well loved banner flies.
Loreto's standard bearers we
In girlhood springtime gay
O may we e'er be loyal and true
To the school friends of today.
And when our school days ended are
And our varied paths divide O may the ideals of our youth
Still ever be our guide;
High ideals of purity, of duty and of truth
Learnt while we bore Loreto's flag
In the sunny days of youth.
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