Alumni

Sherlyn grew up in one of the poorest towns in the Philippines. 17 years after finishing her college degree, Sherlyn works and travels with the Sisters of Mary, helping other children like her out of poverty.

I grew up in a poor family in the Mexican countryside. School was always important to our parents and so they made it possible for me to attend primary school regularly.

In the Philippines Irenea was the eldest of eight children. Her parents had a very basic education, there was little paid work to be found and the family were living a difficult existence.

Rossyle grew up in a rural farming family in the Philippines, near Manila. Ross is the middle child of five, and the only girl. Her family couldn’t afford her education and Ross turned to the Sisters of Mary for her education.

Arturo’s early life in Monte Blanco, Mexico, was very hard. With no money for food, the family was always hungry and from the age of seven, Arturo was expected to work every day in the fields harvesting coffee and sugar to earn a few pesos to support the family.

Clara is a graduate of Villa de las Ninas and is now a maths and physics teacher there. Clara comes from Sololá, from a poverty-stricken family and is one of 10 children.

Evelyn is one of our first graduates from the Philippines. She was the eldest of five children born in the slums of Manaoag, Pangasinan. Her early life was very hard and she had little hope for the future until she was referred to the Sisters of Mary in 1991.  Since then she hasn’t looked back.

Jerome was the eldest of four children, living in Mindanao, South of Manila. The area accounts for a third of the Philippines’ poor. His parents had little education and worked at menial jobs to try to sustain their family. There was rarely enough money for food.

Merlie was born the fifth of nine children and she had an impoverished childhood growing up in the province of Oriental Mindoro in the Philippines. Unstable rural work was the family’s only source of income and her future looked bleak.

Jony is one of the earliest graduates from the first Sisters of Mary school in the Philippines. He treasured his opportunity at school and credits it with turning his life around. He now helps to return the vital support he received by employing new students as they graduate from the schools. Nearly 90% of his current staff are graduates of the boystown and girlstown schools in Cavite.

Junilo graduated from the Cavite boys’ high school in the Philippines in 1999. He went on to achieve a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science degree from STI College Makati in 2014.

Laura was born in Yucatan in Mexico. Only 2000 people in her village and most earned their living by fishing including her father.

After graduating Luis went on to study Business Administration and from there, started a master’s degree in Formulation and Evaluation.

Manuel entered the Sisters of Mary school for boys in Mexico as a deprived and vulnerable young boy in 2002.

He graduated in 2005 and with the help of the Sisters found a position as a culinary assistant at the Marriott Hotel in Cebu and soon worked his way up developing his skills along the way.

Dora had a very difficult early life. Her single mother struggled to support them by selling bread by the roadside to raise money for her and her five brothers and sisters. Despite this there was never enough food. Thanks to the support of our donors in 2003 Dora was offered a place at the Sisters of Mary Girls school in Guatemala.

Eva was the youngest in a family of eight children living in the slums of Honduras.

David is from a small farming community in Coatepeque, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. In his community everyone is dedicated full time to farming and agriculture. Boys and girls traditionally get married very young because they don’t have access to education or any hope of a better future