A day in the life: World Villages for Children
Sister Bernadeth is one of the Sisters of Mary at Kisarawe Girlstown, near Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. She is a ‘Mother-Sister’ to a group of girls at the school. Sr Bernadeth is involved in every aspect of the programme, from community visits and meeting children in need to the day-to-day caring of the children in her family at school.
My day-to-day life is very busy, with every day spent working and helping the girls entrusted to our care.
Each day I start with a prayer with my fellow Sisters then after I proceed to the children (we call them our children because we stand as a mother, we call ourselves ‘mother-sister’) to help and serve them. We prepare together their food for every meal, eat with them, do some house chores with them and prepare them for classes by providing everything they need. After classes I do some activities with the girls, like sports, gardening or music. In the evening I supervise the girls in their personal and group studies.
Our programme helps the poor and the needy. Here in Tanzania, we have 780 students and we give them a high-quality education with technical and vocational courses, and also help to form the children holistically with the help of God and our beloved donors. We give them education, shelter, clothing, medicine and services for free.
Our humanitarian education programme is needed in Tanzania to improve the way of living, especially for the poor. Poor children deserve help so that they can discover their abilities, talents and reach their dreams. They can realise how valuable and precious the gift of life is, and grow, develop and be successful so that they can also help their family and their society. The programme at this time of year is continuously growing and improving and the students are more focused on their studies. We Sisters are almost done in the process of meeting new children for the next school year. Before the new girls arrive, we need to prepare all their needs for education, such as books, bags, notebooks and other school supplies, and also we need to prepare their personal needs. We receive many applicants from the different regions of the country where we have travelled, and the teachers and workers are also showing their support and help with this programme.
The best thing for me is to be able to help the girls in their day-to-day life. By making the most of the opportunities they have here in school, we teach them to live life to the fullest.
As a mother-sister, the biggest challenge that I am facing is the Swahili language, because I recently arrived from the Philippines. So now I am in the process of learning, but I am also grateful because the children here are trying to learn English and they are helping me to learn their language.
World Villages for Children and the Sisters of Mary run live-in schools providing free, quality education for the world’s poorest children. Find out more here.
This is a feature from Issue 21 of Charitable Traveller.
by net effect