The entire Loreto community pays tribute to Loreto Sister, Cyril Mooney who passed away recently at the age of 86.
Sr Cyril was Loreto sister who was born in Ireland, but since 1956 spent her life working out in India and was the Principal of one of our schools there in Calcutta, Loreto Sealdah, for 32 years.
Sr Cyril transformed education in India. She set up the Rainbow schools. Essentially, when she arrived she found that families who could afford to send their daughters to Loreto schools in Kolkata would pay a fee to the school for their education. At the same time, Sr Cyril saw the poverty that existed, with hundreds of thousands of families living along the streets; she saw the cycle of poverty and that no child could ever escape it, and escape the dangers that come with it, without something changing.
Vice Principal, Cate Carr reflects on her experience meeting Sr Cyril
“We are very lucky here in Manchester, I always tell everyone how committed and dedicated Loreto staff are here. We work so hard, we worry about our students, we take things home with us, so many of us see this job as a vocation, we are proud and rightly so. But when you go to India and you meet some of the nuns who are teachers there, you feel very humbled. It’s very moving; this is a vocation in the truest sense of the word – these women commit their lives in service to God by serving the poorest of the poor. Not just by teaching them maths or reading, or to pass exams, but by being there when those young girls wake up in the night and have wet the bed, or they have had a nightmare, they are there on birthdays and as they are experiencing all the things young people do”.
Sr Cyril transformed education in India. She set up the Rainbow schools. Essentially, when she arrived she found that families who could afford to send their daughters to Loreto schools in Kolkata would pay a fee to the school for their education. At the same time, Sr Cyril saw the poverty that existed, with hundreds of thousands of families living along the streets; she saw the cycle of poverty and that no child could ever escape it, and escape the dangers that come with it, without something changing. She decided to implement a system whereby she reduced the number of fee-paying places at the school and used some of the money raised from the fees of families that could afford to pay, to clothe, feed and educate the young street children, or rainbow children as they became known. But more than that, she opened up the schools to become homes; the rainbow children actually live in the schools with the nuns and other staff who look after them. During the day, you would never know which children are which and that is very important for fostering cohesion and equality – they all wear the same uniforms, the same shoes, they all have the big rucksacks, they are in the same lessons, they play games together and march round holding hands and singing, but when the school bell rings at the end of the day, some of the children go homes to their families and some stay at the schoo
Sr Cyril’s programmes have educated 450,000 young people, her and her team have trained more than 7,000 teachers. Not one to rest on her laurels, she then pushed further, she saw a need for education amongst India’s poor rural communities- training more teachers and students from the cities to go into the villages and bring primary education to over 350,000 village children with no access to education otherwise.
When we talk about our Loreto ethos and mission, this is the work it is rooted in – life changing and life affirming work. Our recent fundraising in college was in aid of some of this very work pioneered by Sr Cyril. Some of her projects are now overseen by the Kolkata Mary Ward Social Centre, which we raised funds for during our Lenten campaign.