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Holy Faith Sisters to launch ‘Presence & Action’

The Sisters of the Congregation of the Holy Faith will launch their 400-page limited-edition hardcover gift book, Presence & Action on Saturday, November 26. This year the Sisters will mark the 75th anniversary of their Trinidad foundation. Trinidad Area Leader Sr Juliet Rajah CHF along with the other Sisters will be present at the launch. Archbishop Emeritus Robert Rivas OP will also be in attendance to celebrate the occasion.

In December 1947, this Congregation from Glasnevin, Ireland, set up a foundation in Woodbrook. The Catholic News reported this in the edition of December 27, 1947.

Presence & Action begins when Sr Monica McSherry, the Superior General, Sr Colmcille Kilgallon, and the first seven Irish Religious Sisters arrived, and with that, their immediate establishment of schools across the island. The initial 1946 letter of invitation to the Congregation, came from Archbishop Finbar Ryan OP.

This gift book features extracts from their 75-year collection, including: private letters, minutes of meetings, and personal photographs. The book is chronologically ordered by decades, and geographically maps their work carried out across Trinidad, from Woodbrook, to places such as Couva, Siparia, Penal, Sangre Grande, Valencia, Moruga, Pembroke Street, St Ann’s, and Matelot.

Curated and compiled by archivist, Dr Kwynn Johnson, this historical record draws from their many documents, and is complemented by personal interviews with the Sisters in Trinidad. It’s a tapestry of the official with the ordinary, which weaves several stories about the work of these religious sisters.

This coffee-table book places on the national record, the work of about 70 women. It adds to the cultural conversation – their significant contribution to education in Trinidad, beginning in 1947 to the present. Another key theme which emerges in the book is social justice. It not only finds expression in education in both urban and rural Trinidad, but also in places such as East Port of Spain, and the Remand Yard at the Port of Spain prison.

For more information:

299-1591, 686-4077, 780-5820.