Africa

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  On September 1st, 1935, following a request from Bishop Joseph-Cyprien Bonhomme, O.M.I., five Good Shepherd sisters embarked on the Mattawin to sail across the Atlantic. They arrived at St. Rodrigue, Lesotho, on October 18th to open a school and a dispensary. Later on, several other parishes in Lesotho and in South Africa asked for the same services. 

 Since its outset in Lesotho, the Congregation has been faithful to the founding charism which remains both alive and attentive to present challenges. The sisters continue to communicate love and goodness in teaching, school and parish ministry and social work, especially in prisons. Today’s challenges likewise include the abuse of women and children, human trafficking, and an increasing number of HIV infections. In some convents, the sisters keep children whose parents have died from the consequences of AIDS. In Lesotho, young single mothers can live out their pregnancy and learn to care for their babies at the Good Shepherd Centre, the only one of its kind in the country. The Good Shepherd Night School offers education to impoverished boys and young shepherds. 

 In 1968, a request to collaborate with a Rwandan Congregation brought five sisters to teach in Muramba, where they also opened a homemaking school and a maternity clinic. In 1985, in Kigali, a lay Rwandan association, the Umushumba Mwiza (Good Shepherd) asked for the help of the Congregation to set up a facility dedicated to helping women in difficulty and their children. The plan consisted in establishing a Centre for social integration and work training. The civil war of 1994 brought about many changes, and since 1997, the Centre is under the responsibility of Rwandans. 

 Since the departure of the sisters in 2015, the Congregation continues to support the Fraternity of the Good Shepherd Sisters of Rwanda. This new community, born in the hearts of young Rwandan women, aims to live the charism of love and goodness handed down by Marie-Josephte Fitzbach.