Hurrah For Our Home In The Mountains

LIFT UP OUR HEARTS.

‘Sursum Corda’ is the motto of our school and as you know, in Latin it means ‘Lift Up Your Hearts’ and today is your chance to lift up yours.

Mungpoo is a small village in Darjeeling district in India. And like most villages it is poor.

While poverty is usually thought to be just the absence of food or heating or clothes or other luxuries, the biggest effect poverty has, is on Education.

No place, leave alone a town or city or country, can prosper in the real sense of the word without proper education. Many of us, with the grace of God, studied at one of the best schools in the world.

St. Joseph’s School popularly referred to as North Point, was established by the Jesuit priests in the Eastern Himalayan resort town of Darjeeling in 1888. Their aim was to form leaders in service.

Men and women of competence, conscience and compassionate commitment. It began with an exclusively European student body, thereafter became the institution where among its students were the scions of the ruling houses of the Himalayan kingdoms of Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim.

Run very efficiently by Jesuit priests it offers not just the best in academic learning but also overall development of a child’s personality. The fact that it is about 120 years old and built like a dream doesn’t hurt (ahem ahem).

Every winter, when the students have gone home for their winter vacations, the school is thrown open to provide free classes to under-privileged kids. As good as that is, kids from villages far far away, like Mungoo cannot come.

So the NP Alumni and Fr. Van along with volunteers and the local people of Mungpoo have begun building a school in Mungpoo itself.

Also called St. Joseph's, it is being built entirely out of bamboo, which is treated to make it durable. It is cheaper than concrete and a renewable material. The site is a former cinchona plantation (quinine is now synthesized, so cinchona bark is no longer needed). It is the first secondary school in the area, and locals have been asking the Jesuits to build them a school for the past 35 years. Fees charged are ludicrously low -- and the school is up and running with three classes, even though construction is incomplete.

However as usual, MONEY makes everything go round. Intentions are very noble but 'cash' is required to make it a reality.

This is your opportunity to make a difference to poor but very eager young children.

Our nephews, nieces, children are always asking for iPods and Digi Cams but all that these little kids want are books and a place to study. We all give to charity and to temples and churches etc but here is an opportunity to really make a difference and SEE your money make a difference.

The last verse of our school anthem says;

“Here’s a hand to a faltering brother,

Here's a lift for the lame and the slow,

And we'll stand, boys, like men to each other

As onwards through life we go.”

Lets Make it the anthem of our lives.

Sursum Corda