Non-institutional Education
While our vision of education has always been broad, until 1988 it
was closely tied to educational institutions. Since then the most
striking change has been the numbers of Sisters who have used
their educational backgrounds and expertise in a wide variety of
ministries outside traditional educational institutions. Sisters who
for many years had been engaged in primary or secondary
Education are to be found in various ministries in parishes, health
services and most recently in the volunteering sector of community
service.
Most of the Sisters of Charity now engaged in educational ministry
are outside Sisters' of Charity Institutions, in fact, outside any
institutions. Many of these Sisters work in Parishes as Associates,
teach English to migrants, are involved in teaching literacy and
numeracy to adults and children in various situations, use their
teaching expertise in specialised areas such as music, workplace
English or are involved in various forms of specialised Religious
Education and spiritual formation.
Many of our Sisters who teach English to migrants and refugees in
their homes or in class groups or in the workplace work as
volunteers, either through various Home Tutor Schemes or simply
by personal contact. In many cases these Sisters are the only
English speaking person who comes into their homes and
consequently the relationship is more one of friendship rather than
teacher/pupil although they will often call you "teacher" as a sign of
respect and appreciation. As volunteers the Sisters are able to
reach adults, mostly women, who are either not eligible or unable
to attend English classes provided by the Government and nongovernment agencies.
Their educational background, teacher training and various
professional contacts make it much easier for the Sisters to obtain,
select and organize appropriate material for their lessons than
volunteers who do not have this background. Belonging to a
Religious Congregation also enables the Sisters to draw on
resources not available to other volunteers. Through the
suggestions of these Sisters working with migrants the
Congregation agreed to sponsor some families held in transit
camps in Thailand and other countries. On their arrival in Australia
this support went beyond financial and even educational to
friendship. Soon the Sisters became involved in securing
accommodation, furniture and necessities related to setting up
house, often with furniture obtained from our convents.
Over the past thirty years, the source of our migrants has changed
dramatically. Numbers of refugees and migrants from Asian
countries have increased as have Spanish speaking people from
South American countries, the Middle East, Bosnia and Serbia.
The Sisters are teaching adults not only with different languages
but with different writing scripts. Many of the migrant adults and
children had had their education cut short by war, torture or
hunger. Yet these people have given all of us a new meaning to
living simply and sharing with others.
It seems in some ways that we are back to our roots in working
with these migrants and refugees. The early Sisters helped to
liberate the migrants of their time from poverty and ignorance, and
the same motivation is behind the ministry of this work today. To
experience the joy of these people being able to lift their heads
with pride and independently go to the shops, doctors or the bank
and express themselves sufficiently to be understood is truly a
rewarding service.
Religious Education and faith formation have not been neglected
in this change in the educational outreach of the Sisters of Charity.
A major aspect of the ministry of many of the Sisters now working
in parish Ministry is in coordinating state school Catechists, setting
up and running parish sacramental programmes and the faith
formation of adults. This involves not only direct education of
children and adults but empowering others to be Catechists and
leaders in various parish based, family centred processes for
sacraments of initiation for children and adults.
Another of our Sisters worked in the Sydney Catholic Adult Faith
Education Team where her ministry took her to parishes all over
Sydney in the education and faith formation of those who were
interested in their own faith development or held ministries in their
parish or positions of parish leadership. Another of our Sisters
works in Victoria with small Bible Study groups. She has been
responsible for introducing many people, in particular areas of New
South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, to a deeper understanding
of the scriptures.
The movement of Sisters of Charity out of Educational Institutions
was a sign both of the coming of age of the laity in the Catholic
Church and the renewal and freedom given to religious by Vatican
II. Sisters were freer to pursue ministries where their natural
talents, training and physical energy (sometimes failing) could be
utilised to the full. One Sister describes the time between 1988 and
2000 as representing a completion of the cycle of her life, a
coming home to herself. Prior to entering the Sisters of Charity she
had been a swimming teacher and coach. Since 1988 she has
returned to teaching swimming at an Aquatic Centre. Her present
apostolate one might say, fulfils a dream to do something useful in
her latter years by helping people through her expertise in
swimming and most of all through the gifts God has given her. Of
course, with this background she was sure to be a volunteer for
the Olympic and Paralympic Games as Sports Information
Assistant for Aquatics. She writes of the Paralympic experience as
truly a spiritual one, "volunteers were on the receiving end of the
courage, determination, joy and acceptance of handicaps that
these athletes inspired.
Two sisters continue to be involved in music education. Others
formerly engaged in music education continue their ministry by
playing in our own hostel at St Joseph's Auburn or in nursing
homes as therapy and sing-a-longs for the enjoyment of the
residents. These Sisters still consider it a privilege to play the
organ at Masses in the parishes where they live. They are always
ready when requested to play at Requiems and celebrations of
various kinds.
Although, on the whole, Sisters of Charity are now not to be found
in classroom teaching they are very much involved in education in
its broadest sense and particularly at the grass roots level and on
a one-to-one basis. They are following the charism of Mary
Aikenhead being "extensively useful" where the greatest needs are
to be found, among the newly arrived migrants and refugees, the
slower less confident readers among the children and adults who
for various reasons have not mastered basic literacy and
numeracy skills and the street kids who struggle to learn despite
many disadvantages.