BACKGROUND

Some readers of this page will know that since 2008 Glenstal Abbey School has been fortunate enough to be in direct contact with some schools in Africa.  It began with the assistance of the International Commission on Benedictine Education.

Typically six or eight students and two staff would visit a school, Benedictine or not, in either Tanzania or Kenya, for three weeks in the summer.  The purpose has been to open the minds and hearts of Glenstal students and to supply funds for educational purposes as well as some training for their peers in IT.

Great hospitality has been shown, and these have been ‘win-win’ encounters for all of the young people involved.

A new chapter is opening with the upcoming visit to Togo.  This will be our first visit to a francophone country in Africa.  Eight students are permitted to go, along with Fr John and Mr Thomas Franklin, in June 2023.  A generous welcome is assured by the Benedictine ‘Monastère de l’Incarnation d’Agbang’.  The Irish students will be with their peers in the ‘Complexe Scolaire Athénée St Albert le Grand’.

We thank all those who support this educational project and have contributed, a little or a lot, to the funds collected for the African school – every cent of which goes to them!

Fr John OSB

TANZANIA 2008 – 2013

At the Benedictine Educators Conference in Santiago, Chile in 2007, Fr John O’Callaghan, a teacher at Glenstal AbbeySchool, mte Br John Cassian Kissula OSB, a monk from Hanga Abbey, Songea, southern Tanzania.  Cassian related how volunteers from the Benedictine University in Collegeville USA had visited his schools at Hanga, and he invited us to bring some students to Hanga from Glenstal Abbey School.

Some Glenstal students and their parents were willing to take the risk.  This led to a fruitful relationship over three years, with visits in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

When we made ourselves redundant at Hanga Abbey we, luckily, received an invitation to do a project with their daughter house, namely Mvimwa Abbey, which is in a desolate, more north-westerly region of the country near Sumbawanga and lake Tanganyika.  We started in 2011, just visiting St Placid’s Primary School.  In 2012 we did not visit, but supplied solar panels.  In 2013 we did visit St Placid’s but also the communit’s Secondary School in Sumbawanga.

KENYA 

It was possible over some years to do educational projects around Lale’enok in southern Kenya.  Comfortable camping was generously supplied as well as food and transport at a very favourable rate. 

Covid precluded visits on site in 2020, ’21 and ’22, but due to generous and surprise donations, it was possible to do some thinigs during those years… more details below.

We thank everyone who helped bring such educational possibilities to fruition!