| Written by Michael Swan, The Catholic Register,
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The Sisters of St. Joseph have leveraged more than $1 million to help single mothers caught in a cycle of poverty and welfare dependence to complete post-secondary education in London, Ont.
The sisters used proceeds from the sale of a house in downtown London to split $500,000 between Fanshawe College and Brescia College at the University of Western Ontario. Fanshawe, the community college in London, got $350,000 for scholarships and bursaries to single mothers, with the remaining $150,000 going to Brescia, the Catholic women’s college at Western.
With matching funds, Fanshawe has tripled the sisters’ gift to more than $1 million.
“One of our very early works in France was education of poor women,” said Sr. Margo Ritchie.
The order was founded in Le Puy, France, in 1650. It was disbanded during the French Revolution then revived in 1807 by Mother St. John Fontbonne in Lyon. At both foundings the sisters first dedicated themselves to work with poor women and children. Today there are more than 7,000 sisters worldwide.
The house the sisters sold in 2005 had been a transitional home for women for 25 years.
Over the years the sisters had welcomed discharged psychiatric patients, women awaiting spaces in drug rehabilitation programs, women fleeing abusive relationships and others.
“We committed that the money from the house would go to some kind of project connected to women,” Ritchie said.
The money for education counteracts provincial government policy which prevents people on welfare from also receiving student loans, said Sr. Joan Atkinson.
“We believe education is a way beyond poverty,” Atkinson said.
The sisters’ gut instinct about the value of education for single mothers is backed up by a Statistics Canada study released in May. The study found that while teenage mothers in general remained poorer than other women into their 30s, those who completed post-secondary education usually escaped the poverty trap.
Putting the majority of the money in community college scholarships only makes sense from the point of view of most single mothers, said Ritchie.
“They have one-year courses. They have courses that can lead to immediate jobs,” she said. “If a woman has been out of the education system for a while, the thought of a university is a little daunting.”
The sisters also anticipate that some women who start at Fanshawe may eventually decide they would be better off at university.
There are plenty of London women who need the assistance the sisters are offering, said Atkinson.
“Poverty is not terribly visible, but it’s very present in our city,” she said. “Our shelters are full of people who are homeless. They are full of women who are fleeing violent situations.”
The sisters plan to follow the women who land scholarships through a mentoring program and studies into how the extra education changes the women’s lives.
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