S. M. Cyril
Encyclopedia
Sister M. Cyril Mooney, IBVM (born 21 July 1936) is an internationally-recognized educational innovator and the 2007 winner of the Padma Shri
Award, the Government of India
's fourth-highest civilian honor. She is a native of Ireland
and a Sister of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Loreto). Since 1956 she has been living and working in India
, where she has emerged as a nationwide leader in bringing quality education to urban and rural poor children.
The Rainbow Program
Barefoot Teachers Training Program
Shikshalaya Prakalpa
Hidden Domestic Child Labour Outreach
Rural Child-to-Child Education
Padma Shri
Padma Shri is the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan...
Award, the Government of India
Government of India
The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...
's fourth-highest civilian honor. She is a native of Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and a Sister of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Loreto). Since 1956 she has been living and working in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, where she has emerged as a nationwide leader in bringing quality education to urban and rural poor children.
Background
- Professed Sister of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1955)
- Arrived in India on 10 October 1956
- Ph.D. in ZoologyZoologyZoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...
(LucknowLucknowLucknow is the capital city of Uttar Pradesh in India. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of Lucknow District and Lucknow Division....
, Uttar PradeshUttar PradeshUttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
, India) - Principal of Loreto Day School Sealdah (Kolkata, India) since 1979
Civic Honors/Awards
- 2011: Monmouth University's Global Visionary Award
- 2007: Padma ShriPadma ShriPadma Shri is the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan...
Award, the fourth highest civilian honor granted by the IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n government - 2002: International Christian Stewardship Award, Bishops of America.
- 2000: The Kolkata TelegraphThe Telegraph (Kolkata)The Telegraph is an Indian daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Kolkata since 1982. It is published by the ABP Group and the newspaper vies with the Times of India for the position of having the widest widest circulation of any newspaper in Eastern India.According to the Audit...
Award for Creative Excellence - 1994: The NOMA Award for Spreading Literacy, UNESCOUNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
. - Seven total times: The Kolkata Telegraph Award for Social Service
- Friend of Child In Need Institute (CINI) Award
- Woman of the Year, Ladies' Study Circle
Projects and Major Accomplishments
Loreto Day School - Sealdah- During her tenure as principal, Sister Cyril has transformed this once exclusively upper class private school for girls into a model for equality-based educational change in India. At present, 721 of the 1500 girls in attendance come from poor families (from slums and villages in or near Kolkata) unable to pay school fees. The remaining 779 girls pay their full fees to attend. Across casteCasteCaste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
, social classSocial classSocial classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
, neighborhood and otherwise, these 1500 girls make up a cohesive, cooperative, revolutionary student body.
- All Loreto students in Class V or higher also act as teachers in the Rainbow Program and Rural Child-to-Child Education Program (see below).
The Rainbow Program
- Sister Mooney's school houses, feeds, and educates nearly 250 formerly street-dwelling children, in addition to welcoming another 100 for special classes during the school day. These residents, called “Rainbows”, are, despite arriving with little to no school experience or literacy, integrated into mainstream classrooms as soon as possible. This is often in the children's mother tongues (BengaliBengali languageBengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
or HindiHindiStandard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
), but a substantial proportion of the Rainbow students are able to integrate into the English medium Loreto Day School itself.
- This model has successfully been implemented at dozens of other schools across India, including all of the Loreto Schools in Kolkata.
Barefoot Teachers Training Program
- This program provides teacher training to young men and women from slums and villages near Kolkata who lack the basic requirements to be admitted to teachers’ colleges. Sister Cyril and her staff have trained over 7,000 teachers in this program, who in turn have brought primary education to over 350,000 village children with no access to education. The name “Barefoot Teachers” comes from the philosophy that one doesn’t need shoes to walk, but only feet. The teachers in this program are given practical teaching skills (the feet) without the unnecessary (and irrelevant, in this case) addition of teaching theory (the shoe).
Shikshalaya Prakalpa
- This program, which may be understood as an expanded urban arm of the Barefoot Teachers Training Program, coordinates 470 teaching centres throughout Kolkata. The teachers at these centres (some 1,400 at present) receive similar Barefoot Teaching training at the Loreto School in Sealdah before returning to the slums to teach children there who had no previous access to education. Thus far, over 26,000 children have benefited from this program. Shikshalaya Prakalpa also owns and operates a Mobile Library that transports educational reading materials to the slum teaching centres.
Hidden Domestic Child Labour Outreach
- This program, another arm of the Loreto Day School, combats the crisis of young children being put to work for their families or other slum employers rather than being sent to school. Loreto students, under the guidance of Sister Cyril, actively seek out children and employers in these situations, and though various methods (i.e. talking with the children, badgering the employers, asking the children to “play” and then bringing them to school) take steps to reduce this trend.
- Loreto students have presented a traditional Indian dance drama which deals thematically with the issue of domestic child labour to over 50,000 other schoolchildren in Kolkata.
Rural Child-to-Child Education
- Every Thursday, Loreto students in Class V and above travel to villages outside of Kolkata to teach schoolchildren there whose class sizes are usually 120 pupils to one teacher or higher. The program provides more intimate learning experiences for the rural students while simultaneously bringing the current struggles of rural education to the minds of the regular Loreto students. These efforts reach over 3,500 students per week.
Other Accomplishments
- Sister Cyril and her staff have trained over 50 schools (both public and private) on the topic of Human RightsHuman rightsHuman rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
Education, in addition to succeeding in a proposal to form a West BengalWest BengalWest Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
State Advisory Committee for the same issue.
- The Loreto Day School also operates a class for children with special needsSpecial needsIn the USA, special needs is a term used in clinical diagnostic and functional development to describe individuals who require assistance for disabilities that may be medical, mental, or psychological. For instance, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the International...
, with two full-time teachers for 30 students, some of whom are also part of the live-in Rainbow population.
- Loreto Day School staff and resources have constructed five full-size secondary schools in rural and slum Kolkata, providing quality access to education for another 6,500 students.
- Sister Mooney's school also offers a 24-hour “Childline” telephone service for street-dwelling children in distress. In addition to responding to nearly 100 calls for help, the Childline staff has made presentations about the project to a total audience of over 2,500 students and teachers.