Remembering Sr. Cyril

Inspirations, memories and a small tribute to a meaningful life

Sr. Cyril Mooney was well into her 80s when I first saw her at a donor seminar in the US Consulate in Kolkata. At the end of the seminar, she raised her hand and rose, and promptly asked the organisers, “Will you respond to my emails, if I were to reach out?”. That straightforwardness stood out for me.  

A sister of the IBVM order, she was Principal of Loreto Sealdah in Kolkata, where she pioneered the model of bringing in children from the streets living and giving them free access to school education. Soon, what started as a simple thought, became a ray of hope to hundreds of children in Kolkata. Out of the 1,400 students at the school, 50 per cent did not pay fees.

She called them “Rainbow Children” because just like the rainbow, these children with their colourful clothing, brought in smiles and joy, through all the rain and thunder in their lives. 

Children from the streets are free spirits. That’s why we call them Rainbows. A rainbow gives us great joy when we see it in the sky, but we can’t pin down a rainbow. We can only commune with it.

That’s how the program came to be known as the Rainbow Homes program.  

Sealdah is one of the busiest neighbourhoods in Kolkata, and also home to thousands of homeless families. Children often find themselves in risky situations with nobody to protect or guide them. Sr. Cyril started the Rainbow program with an intention to get the these children to study alongside other privileged children. She explains this eloquently in her book with Neil Farelly, where she talks about the intrinsic equality of every child and the potential to establish environments that enable children from different backgrounds, whether affluent, impoverished, or marginalized, to be nurtured together. So that they can learn and grow together as peers. But, the equality within the protective walls of the school came to a pause once the school bell rang.  

It was on an unfortunate day when a four-year-old girl was raped and left on the pavement right outside the school, the Irish born nun decided that the children needed more than just guidance. They needed shelter and care. She covered the roof of the school and turned it into a large living area. The children now had a place they could call home. If every school opened its doors for street children, there would be no children forced to sleep on the streets. This idea quickly spread to the other five Loreto schools in Kolkata. It was an idea that stood on the backbone of compassion, that went on to give a home to several homeless children in Kolkata. 

Rainbow Foundation India was born much later as a concerted effort to reach street children in major India cities using Sr. Cyril’s model in partnership with respective state governments. While the Foundation was opening a few homes in each city, Sr. Cyril continued with sheer commitment and focus to open several homes in Kolkata alone in partnership with the West Bengal government.  

Rainbow Homes was able to move several actors at one go because it kept the children at the centre of the program. It moved governments because they saw great potential at the intersection of providing shelter inside unused classrooms in functional government schools and civil society bringing in the element of care and protection. It moved philanthropy because it was a phenomenal example of shared vision among disparate actors – homeless children and their families, local communities, schools, governments and non-profits. Today the program runs in 9 capital cities all over India and touches the lives of tens of thousands of children.  

I last met Sr. Cyril at a shelter home in Bangalore on Children’s Day in 2016. She was barely able to walk, but was fully present in mind, regaling children with her stories. She passed away peacefully on 24^th June 2023. This email is a very late tribute, but one which needed to shared with the world.

With her work, she showed us the power of an open heart. She was always in touch with her inner child, which I believe allowed her to feel the joy and pain of the children so deeply. This fuelled her unwavering commitment as an educator.  

I like to believe we all have a little bit of her within us. I only hope we find a way to reach that compassion and tap into it to create more safe havens for everyone on the margins.