DOWN MEMORY LANE: Sr Lydia Fernandes, general councillor, Apostolic Carmel with Sr Mary Susheela, superior gen... Read More

BENGALURU: In anera when girl children were forced to stay home while their male siblings went to school, three Catholic nuns from France started an institution — now St Ann’s High School — in Mangaluru. The nuns, of the order of Sisters of the Apostolic Carmel , spread their mission of educating the girl child to other parts of the country. Now, 150 years on, over 15 lakh students have passed out from 70 institutions of the Carmelite sisters in Karnataka alone.

As the order prepares to kick off its sesquicentennial celebrations (150 years) with an event in Bengaluru on May 5, those now in charge look back with pride on the long and difficult road they have travelled. Sr Lydia Fernandes, general councillor, Apostolic Carmel, revealed the literacy rate on the west coast was abysmally low when they first started out.

“The work of the Carmelite sisters in starting institutions for girl children years ago has helped increase the literacy rate in coastal Karnataka,” says Sr Fernandes. “St Ann’s school was the first to be established in Mangaluru in 1870.”

The order was founded in the latter half of the 19th century by Mother Veronica of the Passion (born Sophie Leeves), daughter of an Anglican minister at the British embassy in Constantinople. “She recognized the need to have quality schools for illiterate girls in India,” said Sr Mary Susheela, superior general of the Apostolic Carmel.

“She founded the active Carmelite order, in Bayonne, France and trained sisters who were sent to India,” added Sr Susheela. “They didn’t know the local language, but children picked up the teacher’s language quickly. We have taught children from all communities.”

St Ann’s counts Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, freedom fighter and social reformer, Octavia Albuquerque, former MLC, Philomena Peres, former chairperson of the Women’s Commission, and Margaret Alva, former Rajasthan governor and senior Congress politician.

“We were taught everything from needlework and gardening to debating and acting,” said Alva. “They were very good educators, taught us discipline and imparted a strong sense of nationalism. At that time, the students were very diverse and from different communities. But we never had a problem getting along.”

