CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR GRADUATES!
When any child graduates from school it’s a big day.
In 2018, over 3,000 of our children will graduate from our Sisters of Mary schools, start work and begin their new independent lives. These children are just a few of those that you have helped with your kindness and who will be able to overcome their poor start in life – only thanks to you.
Every student graduating this year spent their early years in desperate poverty. But with your loyalty and generosity we are able to offer these children a place at one of our schools and the chance for a better future. At Girlstowns and Boystowns they receive care, education, and vocational training to teach them skills they need to obtain a good job and begin an independent life.
And we are so proud every year to see our graduates go on to lift generations of their families out of poverty. Like Irenea Balmes, who graduated in 1995. The eldest of eight children, Irenea had a very loving but poor family, with little to eat and only a few rooms in which to survive. It was a poor and often very difficult life for Irenea and her siblings.
In 1990, the Sisters of Mary met Irenea and with your support were able to offer her a place at our school in the Philippines. Irenea thrived at school with the continued support from our donors and the Sisters’ care.
After achieving a degree in commerce and accounting management, Irenea worked extensively in the Philippines and abroad, and she is now an executive in the consular section of the Brazilian Embassy. She also teaches Portuguese in her spare time!
Like other graduates from the Sisters of Mary programmes, Irenea has used the opportunity given to her to lift herself and her entire family out of poverty. She continues to help her siblings financially, putting them through college. With the financial independence her siblings now have through their education, they are able to support their own families. Irenea and her family owe their improved situation to the kindness of donors like you!
She is not alone. So far over 150,000 children have graduated from these schools but many thousands more people are touched by the care of the Sisters and have their lives transformed. Your gifts to support the children of the Sisters of Mary lift whole generations out of poverty.
These are just a few of the graduates that you have helped, who continue to thrive in their new lives and to support their families and local communities.
But there are so many more children still living in desperate poverty and in need of our help. That is why we have to count on your continued support. Whatever gift you can afford will allow us to provide an education for a child in need. Your gifts provide teaching staff, school equipment, and everything our children require to learn the skills necessary to secure employment after graduation. Modest gifts go such a long way at our schools. A gift of $12 will pay for one pair of black school shoes, $20 pays for the school uniform for one child for a year, $50 pays for the school supplies for one child for a whole year, and $500 pays for the salary of one teacher for a month.
Our children rely on you. Please help us to celebrate this year’s graduates and consider sending a gift to help us to support more children in need.
We can’t express our gratitude better than Irenea when she says from her heart ‘Thank you very very much our dear benefactors! May god bless you all more and more!”
On behalf of Sister Maria Cho and everyone at World Villages for Children – thank you!
