Since the summer of 1999, the Office of Education of the District of San Francisco has coordinated month-long summer immersion experiences in India and Sri Lanka under the name Vandu Paaru (“Come and See”). These projects provide educators with the opportunity to experience the Lasallian mission there and to provide fundamental services to our brothers and sisters involved in Lasallian ministries. Participants typically work in a construction project during the day and spend the evenings with students providing recreation and tutoring in English. The participants live with the De La Salle Christian Brothers’ communities and join the Brothers and Partners for meals and daily prayer.  The weekends are spent sightseeing in southern India and joining in special celebrations or events.

Those traveling from our District to India this summer include Alissa Kell (from Justin-Siena High School of Napa), Carrie Kiskila (from De Marillac Academy of San Francisco, Margaret Brown-Salazar (from Saint Mary’s College of California in Moraga), and Mary Yonekawa (from De La Salle High School of Concord). They will go to Boys Town in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

A second group will do their work at St. Joseph’s Secondary School, in Keelamudimun, Tamil Nadu: they are Katherine Rodella (from De La Salle North Catholic High School in Portland),  Karen Perone (from Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento), Amy Gonzales (from Saint Mary’s College High School in Berkeley), and  Alessandro Bresba (from Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory in San Francisco)
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Both of these sites serve young boys.  Boys Town is a vocational center with practical training in the trades in addition to formal education.  Many of the boys in residence here are poor and abandoned youth.  St. Joseph’s is a co-education village school that serves about a thousand children.  The inhabitants of the village are poor Dalits, members of a low caste.

This opportunity is open to all faculty and staff members of Lasallian institutions in the District of San Francisco, and to date over seventy educators from Lasallian schools in this District have taken part. For more information, contact Robert Jordan of the Office of Education at rjordan@dlsi.org.

To know about the work in India and some eighty other countries, begin with a visit to the international web site of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, www.lasalle.org.

Pictured with the Brothers community are participants in Vandu Paaru 2006: Hilary Yribarren of Cathedral High School, Los Angeles,  Mona Rabieh of Sacred heart Cathedral Preparatory in San Francisco, and Michelle Batista of De Marillac Academy in San Francisco.