On 11^th February 2017, seventeen young sisters  spent the day studying the guidelines for the educational mission of the FMA (GEM).

The resource person of the day was Sr.Stella Potteparambil. Firstly she led the participants in prayer in keeping with the theme taken from John 10.10 “That they may have life and have to the full.” The entire document was explicated by her, using a range of creative methods such as interaction, group work, power point presentation, and composing song etc.

She placed before the group the issues faced by the young people in a changing world. They are globalization, new possibilities, imbalance between technology and ethical awareness and she also simultaneously presented the positive responses: to become a reference point, to guide, to encourage and to support and to waste the time with them. As an educator we should be able to create a conducive environment of acceptance, trust  for the young people.

The videos clips from the films of Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello boosted our enthusiasm to have preferential love for the young and to follow the footsteps of our founders with the aim of forming them as ‘’good Christian and honest citizens.’’

The given guidelines are not only for the daughters of Mary Help of Christians but also for the entire educating Community, consisting of FMA, teachers, parents, Salesian Family members and the young people themselves. She stressed that the holistic formation of the young is very important and it is not only education and discipline but it is more focused on their new forms of poverty, and the use of media. We educate them in keeping with the formula of “Evangelizing through education and educating through evangelization.” At the end the session we committed ourselves to make our formal and non formal educational environment into places where life can grow and can experience an atmosphere of hope.