LSU Missions
Fundraising – does it really matter? Is there any point when the problems in developing countries are so great? Do our non uniform days, cake sales and copper coin collections really make any difference? This is a question many people ask, especially in these times of recession. Our answer is yes, it matters a whole lot but let us tell you some of the ways the LSU sisters are using your contributions and you can judge for yourselves …..The Christmas global gifts campaign over the last two years has been used to pay for 884 meals for infants, 93 malaria treatment packs, 68 school uniforms, 232 text books as well as fees for primary and secondary school pupils.The money from non uniform days, cake sales, the copper coin collection etc was sent to Sr Annette in Tanzania, Sr Helen and Sr Maria in Haiti and Cameroon to use at their discretion. It paid for:
- shoes, school bags, birth certs and exercise books,
- library reading books and text books for the local primary school
- food and charcoal (for cooking) for orphaned children and
- paid the house rent for a number of very poor families.
- some money was used to repair the pump so that the school (Debrabant Secondary) would have water again after very heavy and damaging rains and secondly to make repairs to the latrines.
- money was also used to repair desks and provide chalks and badly needed school supplies.
Some special cases: One woman had a big debt after her husband was killed in a car accident. She had borrowed money to pay the hospital and for the burial and was being harassed and threatened because she couldn’t repay. Imagine the relief to that woman when our money arrived! In the second case a fairly young grandmother, the mainstay of a family orphaned by Aids, had had her leg amputated and needed an artificial limb. She could never have come up with the cost of this operation herself. So the fundraising really does matter, it helps many people in many different ways. Thank you to everyone who contributed.
Bringing Technology to the Third World
The Young Social Innovators aims to develop social awareness and activism amongst the youth of Ireland. For our project this year we came up with an innovative simple idea to make life more interesting in the classrooms of Debrabant Secondary in Tanzania. We have every IT resource available to us here in the Bower to make classes interesting and lively. In Debrabant there is very little available to the students apart from chalk and talk. While the school there has some computers, they have no access to the internet. We decided to bring the best of the educational resources available on the internet to them. We collected power point lessons, animations and video clips from our teachers in Science and Maths, put them together on memory sticks and sent them to the school in Tanzania. We hope to have enough money raised to provide a digital projector as well.This simple idea has made school life much more entertaining and interesting for those students in Debrabant Secondary who have so much hardship to cope with. We would like to give a big thank you to all the teachers who helped with resources and to all who contributed to the fundraising.
Saint Vincent de Paul
In September 2011, a group of concerned students representing 2nd, TY, and 5th year came together to re-establish a St.Vincent De Paul Society in Our Lady’s Bower. It was felt that there was a need for the work that this charity does and thus it was our duty to help out in whatever small way we could. The girls successfully organised two Christmas Table Quizzes. Hopefully this will become an annual tradition in Our Lady’s Bower. We would like to thank all of our sponsors for their generosity. Along with money raised from debating, this year we are en route to raising one thousand euro. On behalf of the society, we urge all students to take an active part in charity work, whether it is inside or outside school.