MEET A SISTER

Meet Sister Loretta LaPointe, CSJ Peterborough

Sister Loretta LaPointe

We are women faithful to prayer, living lives based on Scripture and Gospel values, rooted in our CSJ spirituality. Our ministries respond to the poor and most needy, particularly where the need is not already being met.
(Vision Statement of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peterborough)

The second sentence of our Vision Statement has always been very important to me and my ministry has tried to be in response to it. For some twenty-odd years, I taught in the Peterborough Separate School System loving every minute of it. However, a restlessness crept quietly into my heart and persisted. I wondered if there was more I could be doing. My interest in missionary life was sparked by the visits of missionary priests and sisters to my high school, and I never lost that interest. Later on, as a young Sister, I came into contact with the Missionaries of Africa, then known as the White Fathers, in the person of Father Ray Fortin. We were on the same COR weekend and we kept in touch for many years. As this desire to respond to the poor and most needy, particularly where the need is not already being met grew stronger I shared my thoughts with Father Ray. After much prayer and discernment, I felt that God was calling me to ministry in Africa, specifically in Zambia where Father Ray was working. And so it came to be. With Sister Amelia Belohorec, I set off for Zambia for the greatest adventure of my life. We were going for three months or three years, and here we are in our tenth year!

Bishop Mpundu, Bishop of Mpika-Mbala Diocese, arranged for us to teach and be the Chaplains for the Catholic students of Mbala High School. Sister Amelia taught Religious Education (still does today), and I taught English. Mbala High School is a co-educational and day-boarding government-run school. At present the enrolment is approximately 900 students of which 700 are boarders. These are the lucky students who can afford the fees, uniforms, books, pens, etc. The government provides very little. In Zambia, if one cannot pay the fees and buy the school requirements for high school, one does not go to high school. Besides being volunteer teachers (no salaries), we sponsored seventeen students in term 1 and twenty-six students in terms 2 and 3, including exam fees for seventeen grade 12 students. These are vulnerable students whose parents/guardians have died and are unable to pay the fees. The requests come to us almost daily as they are losing parents/guardians to HIV/AIDS.

After the first two years at Mbala High School, I left to begin a new ministry as Director of Mbala Open Community School (MOCS). Community Schools are free schools meaning that the vulnerable or orphaned children do not pay fees. They are also not required to wear uniforms, shoes and supply their own exercise books. Uniforms are one of the most expensive items for poor parents to provide. In Mbala, there were many students not going to primary school. They were simply hanging around the town and the markets. The Sisters of the Sacred Hearts initiated the project but needed someone who was in education to run it. Therefore I accepted the job. God has blessed this work abundantly throughout the four years of its existence. There are almost 400 young people attending MOCS with a long waiting list. We have four classrooms, a Home Economics room, a carpentry room, two offices and a staff room, funded by NORAD. The Roncalli International Foundation, Canada, gave us money to pay the volunteer teachers and buy the necessary school supplies for the first two years. We now have four teachers who just finished teacher training who will be paid by the Government and three seconded primary teachers. The money used to pay the requirements for the high school students and to sustain the Community Schools comes from donations of interested and concerned people in Canada. Very little assistance comes from the Zambian government.

There is a specific curriculum for Community schools but we opted to stay with the curriculum of the Government schools so our children would not be different than their friends in the Government schools. We offer grades 1-7, plus life skills training in Home Economics and carpentry. Not many of our students will have the opportunity to go to high school, so we hope that they will learn something in Home Ec. and carpentry, which will enable them to earn a living once they leave MOCS. At least they will be able to read and write.

When we first began there was a stigma attached to going to MOCS and much suspicion by the Headteachers of the other schools. Gradually MOCS and its teachers and students came to be accepted. MOCS is now seen as part of the family of the Government schools. As a matter of fact, the Co-ordinator of MOCS attends the Headteachers meetings and is on the Executive. In 2002, MOCS had the second highest number of grade 7 pupils pass their government exams. Quite an achievement! It just goes to prove that students do not need uniforms to be able to learn!

There is a parent committee along with the Co-ordinator, who make the plans for the school and try to solve its problems. A project proposal is being written to the Japanese Embassy to build four more classrooms, a library and a lab so we can offer grades 8 and 9. Most of our students who qualify to grade 8 cannot go because they have to go to the Government schools which require uniforms, fees, etc. Basic education in Zambia now goes to grade 9.

My role as Director, is to offer support and guidance to the parents, teachers and the two Zambian Co-ordinators. MOCS is their school and now that it is well on the way and successful, they should be the ones making the decisions, because I will not be in Zambia forever. For the past three years, I have been back at Mbala High School where I teach English full-time to grades 10, 11, and 12.

A former student of mine has begun a Community school in a bush village for one hundred and twenty-five young people for grades 1-4. Because of the long distance they would have to walk, these children have not gone to school. As well, the people are very poor. There are two untrained teachers, no teaching materials and textbooks. But the parents are most anxious that their children be educated and the students are so excited to be going to school. The two Co-ordinators of MOCS are going to visit this fledgling Community school to offer support, guidance and assist in any way possible. This is my next project!

And so the adventure continues. Thank you God, for letting me be a part of it.

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