Our Ministries
Introduction
The inspiration for our ministries is the Scripture passage “He sent me to bring the Good News to the poor” (Lk4:18), in particular to the materially poor irrespective of caste or creed. This we do through the provision of Quality Education with the involvement of the laity especially through Participative Leadership by having Coordinators working with us in our schools. This is also a response to the call “Who will light the Lantern”?
Spanning three of the four Provinces of Pakistan and ministering in twelve different areas, our Sisters are engaged in formal and informal education, medical care, health work and pastoral work. Our schools now cater for pupils of all religions, Christian, Muslims Hindus and Sikhs.
One of our objectives is to build bridges of understanding, between pupils and parents of all faiths, through Inter-faith dialogue. ‘Values Education’ especially tolerance, respect for people of different faiths and beliefs is a priority in all our schools for all the students and in our other ministries. In most of our schools the pupils are also mixed socially – the poor taking their place side by side with the middle class and well off- while we have schools catering exclusively for the poor. The total number of students, Christian and Non – Christian whom we teach in all our schools is now over 10,000.
Girls education is now given more importance and due to this some women are beginning to take up different professions in the better off areas.
Ministries in Sindh
We have schools and Adult Literacy Programmes for the poorest of the poor among the tribal communities, with special emphasis on Catechetics for our Christians in our schools and far flung villages. The parents have very little interest in education and feel girls do not need education as they are thinking from where their next meal will come from.
As illiteracy is a huge challenge our aim is to provide quality education for the children of these very poor people especially for girls. As our teachers have had a very poor academic standard, we have regular in-service training to help them to develop good teaching skills, learn new methods and gain confidence in the classroom situation for the good of their students.
Like Nano, we believe that education is the key to change. Change is taking place but the challenge is great and the task is enormous. We hope that through education, the students and women will be given a voice and will be empowered to help themselves.
We visit the homes of the parents in the evenings and encourage school attendance of the girls. We have visitation of the sick and hardly a day goes by when some need medical assistance or need to be taken to the hospital. We listen, talk and have prayer with the people in a different village every evening.
We have women’s groups, for whom we have regular programmes on health, cleanliness and ways of helping themselves. We have a hostel for girls from far flung villages who would get no other opportunity of receiving education.
Over the 112 years of Presentation Presence in Pakistan, the Sisters have built up a wonderful understanding with the peoples of all caste and creed. They accept us as dedicated people and are very grateful for what the Sisters have to offer. We have received a rich heritage from our Sisters who have gone before us, in serving the needs of the people especially in educating the poor.
