Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: ON THE MARGINS IN TAMALE

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

ON THE MARGINS IN TAMALE

Septu and students at St. Charles Lwanga.

St.Charles Lwanga Primary school is a Catholic agency school. The school is made up of 810 students with 35 teachers, all from different religious denominations. Sr. Piala Massawe, a Tanzanian, from the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, is the headmistress of the school.
The school provides basic educational rights for all children in and around the location. Without this school, the majority of the students would be travelling long distances to other schools. However, some of the students still walk more than one hour to reach the school. The number of students enrolled increases rapidly every year.

The school experienced two major problems earlier this year: overcrowding of classes and shortage of teachers. Additional buildings recently constructed are now in use by the students. This solves the issue of overcrowding but not the issue of teacher shortage. More than half of the teachers are not getting their salaries which causes the teachers to stay away from the school and find other ways to support their family needs.

Blaise and students - out of class time!

After conducting school assembly on Fridays, we go into some of the classes which have no teacher and we teach. We take the responsibility of being with the class until the end of the day’s school programme.

Beating students is the usual way of disciplining students for misbehaviour or coming late for school. We have not followed this practice and we approach students in a gentle, polite and compassionate manner.

Personal reflection by Blaise
Cycling to school takes an hour and ten minutes. Before reaching the school I meet some students having their breakfast at the small street markets beside the road. Inside the classroom some students were not concentrating and participating in the classroom activities. From what I have experienced, a teacher has to use a stick to warn each child to concentrate and to participate. I am challenged by these behaviors and attitudes.

Before taking too much time to find out what is the cause, I really sympathize with these children and started working with them. I love them despite their individual differences and difficulties. I teach them individually according to the best of their abilities. After some weeks of using this approach, I noticed a great improvement. Those who hardly smiled now smile. Those who could not socialize openly, now mix around with others. Those who struggled with concentration and participation in class and school activities, now show attention and involvement in all class activities.

At ten o’clock break some children would come to me individually and say, “Brother Blaise, give me money or food, I am hungry.” Whether this is a true need or whether it is just because they see Christian Brothers as people who have money, it is a challenge to evaluate and reflect on. The questions are: is it a common practice to beg for food or money? What is it like in their homes? How many of them have parents, guardians or families? And how many of them starve for food and good living conditions?
Live Jesus in our hearts… forever.

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What do we want this novitiate to be?

There is a saying that goes something like this: “If we don’t do what we believe in, then we’ll end up believing in what we do”. Without a vision that is authentic and alive to guide our actions, then we can settle for rationalizing the status quo or what is convenient and comfortable.
One of the first things the new team in Tamale did was to spend time beginning to articulate its vision of a novitiate beyond the basics laid down in our Constitutions. Here are some elements of what we came up with:
Novitiate is a journey, a process that involves KNOWING, EXPERIENCING and CHOOSING.
It is an INITIATION into Christian Brother religious life, so a “rite of passage” into a new identity, a time of learning and testing.
Novitiate confronts the novices with the Brother’s vocation as a call to brotherly solidarity and community, not to privilege, status and security.
It involves exploration of the basic values of faith and vocation, and the challenge to embrace these out of personal conviction and free choice.
Novitiate means understanding that a religious vocation makes a claim on the whole of the person and his life, including his inner life, his relationships and his professional activity (ministry). Furthermore, it challenges the novice to see the dynamic inter-relationship of these areas and to learn what their integration means.
Novitiate is a time of DISCERNMENT. The novice learns more deeply who he is, and what this Christian Brother life is. There is a constant back-and-forth movement between these two poles as an answer is sought to the question, “Is this where I am meant to be? Is this the life that will enable me to find my true self in God?”