HISTORY OF ST. CHARLES CONGRGATION - IN BRIEF
      The congregation of the Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo was started in Belgium in 1684.It extended its mission to different countries like India , Italy, Argentina, Poland and Africa. The three missionary sisters who  came to India in 1929 opened the first house in Ranipet, of Tamilnadu. Now there are 65 houses in India formed into  provinces : Eastern, Western and Northern .The total number of Sisters working in India is 450. There are about 100 Indian sisters working in the mission countries.

In India we are engaged in managing

ST. CHARLES SOCIETY – MADURAI

There is an ancient saying that Rome was not built in a day. We can apply this saying to the history of the activities of St. Charles Sisters in Madurai. It spans over four decades and consumed every bit of their energy and zeal. The beginnings were hard; it demanded patient toil. Two of our sisters came to Madurai in 1969 and chose to settle down in Thirunagar, They chose Madurai, because a colony of repatriates thrown out of Mianmar took shelter in Thirunagar, Madurai. Their ancestors went to then Burma in search of a more affluent life for a better life and better future for their children, unfortunately, the newly formed state of MIANMAR sent people of foreign origin out of their country of adoption. Thus these unfortunate people were uprooted from the country of their choice and reached the country of their ancestors, with very little means for sustenance. Our Sisters adopted these rejected people. A Redemptory priest named Father Francis, helped the two Sisters to settle down for their work among the women of the locality.

‘CATCH THEM YOUNG’ is the wisdom of our elders. Thus, our first concern was to gather small children and give them hope of a better future. As a result, our first Sisters, themselves living in a rented house, rented a small place, where our first school began to function with just 15 children in temporary sheds constructed in 1973. This was our first effort to give these refugees some hope in life - of a better life! In time it bloomed into a well furnished Matriculation School. At the repeated and pressing request of the parents and local people, we started a Boarding Home in which 30 children stayed with us.

Our attention then was turned to the elderly people - the forefathers who risked their everything to seek new life across the seas. In 1975, realizing the pathetic condition of the disowned elders, we opened a home for them -SNEHA ILLAM-to care for them. This again was small in the beginning -with just 4 men. At present, we have 5 men and 35 ladies.

More visits to the homes of these repatriates made us realize that mothers and children were in dire medical need -both preventive and curative medical care. So with the help of MISEREOR of Germany, HELPAGE of Italy and of the Archdiocese we began the MOTHER AND CHILD WELFARE PROGRAMME, catering to over 300 families around us.

With the generous help of the Archbishop of Madurai and a benevolent Priest namely Rev.Father Soosai , we bought a land and built a modest home for ourselves and in slow stages built a structure to expand our Educational work among the poor girls of the locality. We realized that they could not afford to travel to the city of Madurai and so in 1976 we were able to begin Std. VI, which has grown into our present Higher Secondary School.

“Each one teach one “said the Father of our nation. But he also wisely added:" if you teach one lady, you are teaching one family ". Being the queen of the family, her influence is multiplied and so she is more than just one person at the home and in the society. This has been our belief and our guiding star, from the very beginning. With this quest in mind, we turned our eyes on to the next higher and more important project, which will be the crowning instrument of our educational work: namely, a college of Education,with the intention to produce educators who will be inspired with a sense of mission for the development of girls. In this College of Education, we prepare young ladies with a sense of higher purpose in life committed to the noble task of education.

          These inspired young women will take up teaching the thousands of disadvantaged small girls in the city neighborhood and slums, not thirsting for their salary, but burning with a sense of mission towards the unfortunate girls of our country, freeing them from the clutches of child labor. These young ladies who come out of our College of Education, we hope will become, torch bearers to hundreds of villages where girls are neglected, ill treated and abused. This is our earnest hope - to contribute our mite for the emancipation of the women in India - emancipation from hard manual work, slavery in the cottage industries, where the vitality of their lives is cruelly crushed, sapped and discarded as refuse.