To enable girls to continue their studies well beyond grade 12, the SNJM established housekeeping schools, also known as family institutes. The training helped to develop many skills in their role as mother and linchpin of the family, and opened doors to the job market or university studies.
Housekeeping school students studied psychology, sociology, economics, family pedagogy, childcare, horticulture, chemistry, biology, home administration and basic accounting principles, domestic medicine and more. This demanding program also included courses in home maintenance, ironing, sewing (with courses in cutting and garment making), weaving, vegetable dyes, interior decoration, drawing, and the many aspects of agriculture including beekeeping, arboriculture and horticulture. Many of the students discovered their vocation through this course of study.
Wherever SNJMs have worked and continue to work, in Canada, the United States and Lesotho, domestic arts education is present. This training is all the more useful at a time when we are rediscovering the virtues of the circular and local economy, and those of environmental preservation.
