Celebrating Mother Mary's birthday

Mother Mary’s birthday was celebrated at RTU on 7th September in our schools and Children's Villages. All the children and foster mothers joined in the procession from our main campus to Sirumalar Children’s Village where Fr Maria Antony gave a message of the feast. Our foster mothers prepared Sweet Pongal rice and shared this as a sign of thanksgiving. 

Future Florence Nightingales of RTU!

Our students who completed their 12th standard exams, Jeyanthi, Latchiya, Shifana and Dhanalakshmi, have entered further education, joining the 3-year General Nursing and Midwifery course in Claudine School of Nursing, Batlagundu.

Manjula, Keerthika, Lavanya, Pandimeena, Saroja and Bhavitha joined the Shenbagam School of Nursing, Madurai, while Nandhini, Motcha Manjula, Suganthiyadevi, Angel and Simmarani are studying at the Government Medical Colleges in Coimbatore, Nagapattinam, and Salem.

We wish them all well as they embark on their careers.

Wedding bells

We were delighted that several of the girls who were in our care were married recently. Many staff attended the weddings and wished the couples a happy married life. RTU provided marriage gifts to the girls.

We are happy to be able to share these photos from two of the weddings:

On 12th September Dhanalakshmi married Mr Rajendran in Virudunagar and has settled there. Dhanalakshmi came to RTU in 2004 as her father had died. With our support, she studied General Nursing and Midwifery at the CSI School of Nursing in Madurai.

Also on 12 September Panchavarnam married Mr Kumaresan in Madurai and has settled there. Panjavarnam came to RTU in 2004 as her parents were terminally ill and subsequently died. She studied Patient Care Management in St Lukas Hospital in Nazereth.

News from our schools

As well as sitting the quarterly examinations, our school students have been kept busy with other activities.

On 5th September, we celebrated National Teachers’ Day for our school teachers and non-teaching staff in our main RTU campus, with a special welcoming procession, Thappattam (traditional drums with dance), as well as cultural programmes. The students honoured the teachers and thanked them for their ceaseless efforts in educating our children. It was a great day for the students to express the love and gratitude they feel towards those who have been showing them a hopeful future.

On 9th September, our teachers and students organized Lord Ganesha’s festival in St Peter’s Primary School. As Lord Ganesha is a lover of food, especially modak, (rice flour shells with grated coconut and jaggery) our teachers prepared this food and offered it to Lord Ganesh with devotion and prayer services. At the end of the celebration, all the children had their share of modak too.

On 28 September, our 12th standard students went to Kodaikanal for their educational trip. They visited the biological museum in Senbaganoor and learned about the bio-diversity of the Kodai Hills. The botanical gardens, lake, Green Valley and Pine Tree Forest were other places of interest for them. A visit to the Solar Observatory to learn about the cosmos was an unforgettable experience. We hope this will inspire the students and help them to study science subjects more effectively.

Camp Rainbow

Camp Rainbow, our residential programme for children living with HIV/AIDS, took place for 5 days in our Anbu Illam Children’s Village, with a range of activities and life-skills training. In total, 44 children from Theni, Tirunelveli, Virudunagar, Madurai, Sivagangai and Thiruppur Districts took part. All the children had fun and learned new things, made new friends and increased their self-confidence, social connections and hope. Camp Rainbow is a joint initiative of RTU, Meenatchi Mission Hospital and Research Centre, Madurai, YRG Care Chennai and Seriousfun USA.  To organise the camp, student-volunteers were selected from the American College, Lady Doak College, Madurai Institute of Social Work and Anugraha College and underwent 5 days of training prior to the camp. We have started the process of creating criteria for RTU to organize this camp every year. 

Four new wells for schools

During September we drilled one bore well with submersible electric pumps in Sanga Reddy Kottai Government middle school, one in Nadakottai village, one in an Ided primary school in E.Kongapatti and one in a middle school in Ariyanellur. All the bore wells have good water yields and the schoolchildren are very happy to have safe, plentiful water supplies. 

These are just the latest examples of how we help provide safe, clean water to communities.

The photograph below shows the well at Sanga Reddy Kottai.  

We know that it is the tireless work and dedication of well-wishers like you that makes all the difference. Without your help it is not possible for us to deliver all the work you read about in our newsletters; our whole team would like to thank you for being such wonderful and generous donors. Thank you for your contribution.

May God bless you all!

Fr J Antony Paulsamy, OFM Cap.

Secretary and Director

Download a pdf of this newsletter.

SIGN UP TO RECEIVE OUR NEWS