Foundress Day 2020

Foundress Day is celebrated annually on the 24^th of April, in remembrance of our foundress, St Mary Euphrasia. Every year, the staff of Ahuva Good Shepherd, Singapore gather together and put up performances such as skits and songs to commemorate Foundress Day. However, this year, due to the Covid-19 circuit breaker, we were unable to continue with our usual annual celebrations.

Despite the circuit breaker, Ahuva Good Shepherd – Children’s Home (AGS-CH) came up with other ways to remember our Foundress while staying at home. Spearheaded by Aunty Kamala, the staff prepared a booklet about St Mary Euphrasia during the week prior to Foundress Day. The booklet contained stories of St Mary Euphrasia’s history, a quiz about our Foundress and a reflection section, where our children would reflect on how St Mary Euphrasia had impacted their lives. They spent the week reading up about St Mary Euphrasia to understand more about her life. They even spent the weekend quizzing each other about her! C.F., 15-year-old shared that she did not know much about St Mary Euphrasia’s life and was glad that she had this booklet to now understand a bit more about her while H.R., 12-year-old noted that St Mary Euphrasia was a very strong person and she hoped to be like her. Following that, on the eve of Foundress Day, the residents and staff started preparing letters of appreciation for the Sisters of Ahuva Good Shepherd (AGS). We also prepared decorations to put up around AGS.

On Foundress Day, we decorated AGS in remembrance of our beloved St Mary Euphrasia. As we were not able to acquire real flowers for our Foundress due to the circuit breaker, we got creative and printed out flower bouquets and used them to decorate our home. After the decoration, the children completed their letters which were then delivered to the Sisters.

Finally, our children did their much-awaited quiz competition about St Mary Euphrasia after spending much time studying about her. They had so much fun as it was carried out in a whiteboard quiz style competition! They did their best and were very enthusiastic about answering questions by Ms Rowena, one of the staff.

They also had some quiet time where they reflected about our Foundress and spent some time, jotting down their thoughts. H.E. an 11-year-old shared with everyone how she felt grateful that our Foundress had started Ahuva Good Shepherd while G.S. another 11-year-old said that she hoped to be as kind as St Mary Euphrasia.

To end off the celebration, the young residents watched a video about St Mary Euphrasia and had pizza. It was a wonderful day indeed!

Written by: Soniya Selvaraju, Social Service Assistant

Ahuva Good Shepherd –Children Home (AGS-CH)

Singapore