13. Sacred Heart Convent, Barnala

 

Sr M Rose Margaret BS
Superior

Members of the Community

Convent building

With the poor children. Evening School

 

Sarva Dharm

After a wide gap of founding communities involved in social work alone, a community of Bethany Sisters with both school and social ministry was started at Barnala in Punjab on 5 July 2002. The invitation to start this convent came from Mr Rajinder Gupta, the Managing Director of Trident Industries, Barnala. Being a citizen of Ludhiana he was familiar with Sacred Heart Convent School there and dreamt of having a similar school in Barnala to uplift the educational standard of the city. Side by side non-formal education and other developmental works were on the anvil. Sr Nora, the Provincial Superior, presented this invitation to the Generalate resulting in the establishment of Sacred Heart Convent and School in 2002. The convent, located in the Officer’s colony of Malwa industries was officially inaugurated by Sr Nora and blessed by the parish priest Fr Freddie Thomas. The pioneers are Sr Jane Chantal, Superior and Principal, Sr Cedra, Sr Immaculate and Sr Luciana Abraham, members. It was only in June 2014 that a convent building was constructed for the sisters. This convent was blessed by Most Rev. Ignatius Mascarenhas, the Bishop of Simla- Chandigarh, and inaugurated by Sr Maria Leena, the Provincial Superior.  Sisters in this community are involved in education, non-formal school, village development programme and a Vocational Training Centre (VTC). Sr Rose Margaret is the present superior of the convent and Sr Elsie, the Principal.

Sacred Heart Convent Senior Secondary school

The school was formally launched on 18 May 2002 in a spectacular function during which Sr Jyoti, the Superior General inaugurated the building and Most Rev Gerald John Mathias, the Bishop of  Simla-Chandigarh blessed it. Sacred Heart Convent School witnessed a quick growth with the support of Mr Rajinder Gupta and the Trident Group. The first block of the school constructed in the new plot purchased was inaugurated on 11 March 2004 and the second and third block in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Sacred Heart became a fully fledged school when the first batch completed their Std X in 2010. Today, the school started with 86 students, have 2075 students on the roll.
 
‘Fullness of life for all’ is the motto of the school that aims at ‘Transformative Education.’ An infrastructure with modern technology based education, spacious play ground and value based formation of the students are the distinctive marks of the school.

Year of establishment: 5.07.2002