The Amazing Sr Cyrill: Visionary, Humanitarian and Lizard Expert

I have to write a post on this amazing person. Her work here in Kolkata has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands and her vision has revolutionized the education system and beyond.

30 years ago when Sr Cyrill moved to India she taught at a private school reserved for the rich. The idea was to teach the kids that would become the next generation of politicians, lawyers and entrepreneurs and teach them about human rights and compassion so that they would then remember the poor and change India. However, after the kids left the school in the pressures of the real wold they would not remember the teachings of the school. Then it dawned on her. She needed to teach the poor and change India from the ground up. 'In India you have to do everything through the backdoor. If you try to go through the front you get turned down' she told us. But instead of exclusively teaching the poor she decided to do both.
The school is now made up of 1400 students: 700 pay and 700 don't. It is one of the only places where the rich and the poor can meet and come together, abolishing stereotypes that each group has about the other. Although some parents have complained about their children studying alongside homeless kids, the reputation and academic standard of the school is so high that no rich parent would remove their children from the school. 'We don't even know who pays or who doesn't. And even when we know we don't tell anyone' a young grade 10 student told us. 'We don't believe in the school model that teaches only the rich'. Sr Cyrill has taught them well. I see a sea of girls giggling, chasing each other, gossiping (imagine that- they do that here too!) and I can't tell who belongs to which group.
Many of the schools poor have gone on to university. Currently 20 teachers are past students.
The school is also a home for a few hundred children (known as the Rainbows- I love them!) who have no home to go back to . These children are composed of orphans, abandoned as well as previously abused kids. All with no home but the school. Instead of begging in the streets these kids now have food, shelter, love and the chance for a better future.
Over the last 30 years new programs were created where she saw an opportunity. Here is a few of them: money lending program for parents to start a small business, mobile schools (with a mobile library) to take a school to those kids that can't travel to school, Schooling for young girls of the Red Light District, teacher training program for teachers of the public government schools and the development on India's first curriculum on Human Rights which they are now lobbying to implement throughout the state.
All my respect to this amazing visionary woman. And yes, she is a lizard expert with a PhD in Zoology!