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Dec'06 - May'07 - Dec'07
S.M.CYRIL WRITES
Dear Friends,
Now that I am back in India (arrived on October 24th, 2007, early morning), it is time to write to thank all of you who contributed so much to make all my travels so comfortable, enjoyable and in many cases successful ! I know you will excuse me for writing a general letter but if I try to reach on each one, probably I’ll never send anything at all ! I tried to answer all my 2006 Christmas cards that way and they have still not gone !!!
I begin with England where I arrived on 19th September 2007, and was met by Rachel and taken back to her home in a lovely little secluded Mews where the sound of the London traffic was only a distant hum. The reason for being there was the release of a book written by Zerbanoo Gifford on inspirational women, collected across 60 countries. I was one of them ! and our portraits were displayed in the National Portrait Gallery where the reception was held. Among the many people I met there was the Duchess of York who turned out to be a granddaughter of the Powerscourt family and who spent her summer holidays on their demesne as a child, at the foot of Sugerloaf Mountain. She was quite excited to find I was from the same area outside Bray (albeit of humbler origin !).
On to New York on 25th September 2007, for Bill Clinton’s Third Global Conference – met by Malini Bhagat at the airport and dropped to the Sheraton Hotel – huge – over 30 floors at least and over 1000 guests. Next morning the Conference began with a great flourish – each Head of State being announced as they entered in procession to the huge auditorium with Bill Clinton bringing up the rear, preceded by a special flourish of fanfare and the announcement : Mr. Bill Clinton 48th President of the United States of America ! The Conference was organized with two Plenary Sessions a day and in between 4 workshops running simultaneously on Education, Global Warming, Health and Eradication of Poverty. Each workshop had about 4 speakers – I was asked to speak on Adolescent Girls’ Education in Developing Countries. The entire programme has been recorded on their website and I even feature on it also ! Space prevents me from elaborating on the entire programme but if anyone would like more information, they should look up www.cgi.org.
I found Bill Clinton very charming and with a very clear agenda to get together as much money as possible to really help the poor of the world. In addition to the Heads of States and other Government Officials he had the presidents of many large international companies getting up to commit figures like 100 million dollars to stop 70 million tons of carbon being released daily into the atmosphere. Each of these came up on stage to have their commitments read out by Bill Clinton and to have a photo taken with him presenting a certificate. Even though I did not make any public commitment (not having a million dollars to pledge !!!) I was still called to have a photo taken with him, which was found and downloaded from his website www.cgi.org and shown to me but I haven’t got my own copy yet ! When I told him I’d not made any commitment, he said, “What’s 51 years in India ?” I also met him several times and had the opportunity to chat briefly. One of the most valuable aspects of being invited to such a huge conference was the opportunity to meet and to be heard by many people interested in development.
I was allowed one person as a ‘staff support’ so I invited S. M. Doryne, our Loreto Representative at the UN, to come. We spent a very good day together but she had other commitments for the remaining 3 days. Bill Clinton’s final talk was so good, it would be worthwhile to read it on his web page. His wife Hillary came for the last talk but she was late and sat at the far side of the Hall so I couldn’t meet her. I spoke to Mary Robbins and Gerry Adams who were there – Tony Blair also. I feel that, apart from my talk, the contacts I made as I moved around were really valuable. Many people approached me with their cards after the talk and asked me to keep in touch.
On the first evening a special reception was held in the National Art Gallery. It was sponsored by India ! and there were several items from India given as mementos. The second evening had two events – one was tastes of the world, where we could move around and dine off the offerings of the top New York Chefs, followed by an evening at the Carnegie Hall where we had the presentation of the Clinton Global Citizen Awards (CGCAs) and a beautiful choir of African children.
The CGCAs were four – one went to the founder of BRAC in Bangladesh. He has devised methods of development that have lifted 35,000,000 people out of their poverty and reached out to 3,000,000 children. I met him – he had actually sent his teachers over to learn our teaching methods here in Loreto Sealdah, earlier on. The second one was Vicky Colbert who started the Ecole Nueva which she spread all over south and central America reaching quality education to 5 million children. She is a lovely person and will soon be coming to visit us here in India. I had met her here before at a Conference in Delhi and found her charming and very dynamic. The third awardee was Andre Agassi who had founded a school to handle 545 poor children in South America and the last one was the founder of the CISCO system, providing computer education to over 5,000,000 students world wide. It was good to renew acquaintance with the first two – I didn’t get a chance to meet the others.
On the twenty eighth, I spent the morning speaking to pupils in Malini Bhagat’s school in New York. I flew to Ireland on the 29th, arriving at 5 a.m. on Sunday 30th. The morning went in Donnybrook Church speaking at all four Masses on behalf of the John Scottus School which comes out each year to build rooms on to schools which we choose from all over our area of operation in 24 Parganas South. These are all Secondary Schools with a Pupil-Teacher ratio of 150 children to 1 teacher and 2 extra rooms mean that they can go up to Higher Secondary and get two more teachers from the Government. This has resulted in 8 schools to date being recognized for Higher Secondary by the Government so the girls have the opportunity to go on to University. This will have a far reaching effect on development in the area as it is a well established fact that the better educated the mothers, the more chance there is of their children surviving and growing up to be competent adults.
After Mass, I had lunch with all my family at my sister’s house, then over to a wonderful welcome from the nuns in Bray and ended up with Protima and Larry in the late evening. The rest of that week was a blur of everything, talks, meeting so many people. On Sunday, 7th October, a special Mass was said in the Queen of Peace Parish – it was the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the Church (at which I was present as an 11 year old) and they wanted to honour me as the only Irish recipient of the Padma Shri. I was asked to share on my work in Kolkata. The Church was packed and I was really touched by the number of Loreto Sisters who were there, as well as my family and friends from school whom I hadn’t met for years. The whole function was telecast by RTE and a portion of it appeared on the 6 and 9 o’clock news and this brought a further plethora of phone calls and messages, so my second week was really busy – the Mayoress of Bray had a civic reception for me in the Town Hall and the Loreto Nuns had one on 11th October 2007 in the Mary Ward Development Office which was our novitiate in the old days. Then in between, there were a number of other talks and meetings. Even so, there were many people I could not meet because of lack of time. However, I expect to be back next year for my normal holiday so shall be in contact.
Then I left for Holland on Sunday, 14th October. Mr. Gerloch (I can’t manage his surname) is the Head of Schipol Airport and a member of the Board of Partnership Foundation so I was met as I came off the plane by a very charming official who told me I was their honoured guest and bore me off to a very special VIP lounge where Ferdinand Van Koolwijk (who funds our Rainbow Homes) was waiting. We had a good long time to wait for the girls from India as they arrived only at 6:30 p.m. having negotiated London on their own apart from all the other new experiences such as toilets, escalators, to mention a few.
We stayed for five days at the Fighi Hotel in Zeist and were thoroughly spoiled by the owner-manager who could not do enough for our five Rainbows. We had an audience with Princess Maxima, the Argentinean wife of the Crown Prince – a very charming lady who gave us nearly an hour’s interview in the Royal Palace at the Hague. We also met the Lord Mayor of Zeist. We had meetings the whole week with different groups of people and in one very rich school – the Stebo School which, I think is going to fund Loreto Elliot Road Rainbow Home from January – we had a great lunch, lots of cheese and lovely sandwich spread and special bread. When it was all over and they were tidying up, our five girls were horrified to see such good, untouched food just emptied into the dustbins and created a deep impression by expressing their mind to the school staff on how wasteful it all was !
There were several receptions also, with over a hundred people and the girls had to get up and speak. I felt very proud of the way they carried themselves. In fact, right through they were really good. We had lots of funny moments too – e.g. I found Shefali (the most adventurous) trotting across to have a boiled egg she’d picked up off the other counter poached by the man who did special eggs at breakfast !! One really grand treat was the visit to Little Holland outside the Hague where there is a wonderful park in which all the important buildings and structures of Holland have been build on a scale of 1:25. Even the tiny trains ran all around and stopped at stations. For the first time, the girls actually saw how barges are moved up river through a series of locks. The last few days were really busy and included a visit to a Christian College of Management where I addressed the students on Management as applied to schools and they asked many questions.
The big event since my return has been the 150 years’ celebration with our performance in the Netaji Indoor Stadium before an audience of about 8000. We had 2500 children taking part, including 400 Shikshalaya Prakalpa children from the slums, 120 Hidden Domestic Child Labourers as well as the regular 1400 Loreto students and about 400 Loreto Rainbows. They really put up an impressive show, especially since they only got one practice in the Stadium the day before and the Shikshalaya Prakalpa children and Hidden Domestic Child Labour had to brave the riots over Taslima Nasreen to reach the stadium.
Most outstanding was the performance of the Karate item presented totally by the senior Rainbows. The Governor of West Bengal had to leave early in the midst of the Concert so the music stopped in the middle of the Karate item, so the Governor could address the children before he left. The Karate girls never moved a muscle. They just stood perfectly still and started the item from where they had left off when the music began after the Governor left. Of all the items in the Concert and there were very many perfect ones, this one was the most impressive.
I would like in particular to commend the staff who prepared the entire programme while I was away gallivanting about the world !!
I want to express also my very sincere gratitude to all those who welcomed me on my travels and who have written letters, sent messages and contributed so generously to our work here in India.
No more for now except to wish you a very happy Christmas and all God’s special blessings on you in the New Year.
Yours in JC.
S. M. Cyril
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