Kenya 1965
Five American Sisters of Notre Dame arrived in Kenya on August 25, 1965: Sisters Ann Maxwell, Camille Baker, Charlotte Hannan, William Suzanna Harahan and Marie Therese O’Brien. Kenya’s struggle for political independence served as a major foundation for her educational development and change. Right Reverend Bessone, the Bishop of Meru Diocese invited the Sisters of Notre Dame to establish a secondary school for girls in his diocese.
This initial apostolate at Saint Mary’s Secondary School in Egoji was designed as education, preparing women for higher education at secondary level and preparing both men and women to take their place as teachers in primary and secondary schools throughout the country.
It was the ever increasing plight of the struggling people that brought the Sisters to re-think, re-vitalize and re-iterate their original mission statement to fit the needs of the 1980’s and beyond. As a result, the ministries became greatly diversified with a definite relationship to the immediate requirements of the people with whom they lived, worked and worshiped.