Educated Girls are Pilgrims of Hope in SAC’s 145th Year
Educated Girls are Pilgrims of Hope in SAC’s 145th Year
Mercy Light: Leading
Cast your eyes across any schoolyard in Australia during the first morning of a school year, and you’ll likely notice similar happenings: new students, nervously peering around their environment. Perhaps you’ll observe people with tear-glazed eyes – a swell of nerves, pride and anticipation for the coming year. Excited friends and classmates eagerly reconnect after the summer break. Teachers warmly welcome students and caregivers into their classrooms.
Scenes unfolding in the infant weeks of 2025 at SAC are similar. And, as new-year jitters begin to settle, constant is the hum of joy echoing through campus as more than 1,200 girls arrive each day. Though they may not realise it, these girls and young women walk in the footsteps of thousands who’ve gone before them. St Aloysius College celebrates 145 years of educating girls this year. In 2025, the College also celebrates with Catholic communities globally, a Jubilee year, the theme for which is ‘Pilgrims of Hope’.
To be a pilgrim is to seek, to connect and to grow. Catherine McAuley, Foundress of the Sisters of Mercy, was a pilgrim who broke boundaries for women in 19th Century Ireland, where she walked with suffering children and women on the streets of Dublin. Catherine and her Sisters of Mercy became known as ‘the walking nuns’. Back then, nuns were cloistered, meaning that their lives were mostly spent in spiritual contemplation. The Sisters of Mercy, in walking with those in need, carried faith into the streets and shone a light of hope across the darkest alleys of their community. Their pilgrimage nurtured connection and led to the growth of a global community, of which SAC is part. Supporting the poor, with a particular vision to educating girls and women, was and is at the heart of the Mercy mission.
Educated girls can have confidence about their place in society and their role as leaders who can contribute to a just and peaceful world. Today, schools of research validate what Catherine advocated; that educating girls means giving them a voice. Research provided by the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools suggests that, “Girls’ school students are more likely than their female peers at coeducational schools to experience an environment that welcomes an open and safe exchange of ideas. Nearly 87% of girls’ school students feel their opinions are respected at their school compared to only 58% of girls at coeducational schools.”[1]
Year 12 Justice and Mercy Leaders, Clodeta and Harnaaz, agree that an all-girls’ education fosters confidence.
“We’ve both been at SAC since Year 5. The personal development we’ve experienced has been life-changing. Having a main focus on girls means that we have access to all the leadership opportunities available to students in school, and we are encouraged to step out of our comfort zones through extra-curricular and academic programs,” says Harnaaz.
Clodeta adds that, “we are constantly empowered and reminded by the Mercy values [Compassion, Service, Justice, Respect, Hospitality and Courage] that we as young women can make a difference. Personally, I feel that going to school in an all-girls’ environment has helped me focus more on my ambitions and given me confidence.”
“I have really enjoyed being exposed to texts with strong female protagonists,” shares Harnaaz. “Our teachers encourage us to engage with books and media where girls are empowered, or challenging traditions and breaking stereotypes.”
“We also realise, now that we are in Year 12, we are role models for younger girls. That is a profound feeling,” Harnaaz reflects.
“When girls can see what is possible for them from a young age, then they can become it,” insists Clodeta.
“The Sisters of Mercy were the walking nuns, so girls and women could see a different way for their lives through those women, just like we can see examples in the women around us,” she says.
As JAM Leaders, Clodeta and Harnaaz have an important role of upholding the Mercy Values and, together with a team of secondary students and Year 6 Primary JAM Leaders, will work on awareness and fundraising campaigns this year to bring attention to many causes touching the lives of vulnerable people.
“Catherine McAuley laid the foundation, doing things that were against people’s expectations in her time. She led the way for women to stand up for social justice. Now, we can look to her story and think, ‘what do we want to do?’ And we feel empowered to take those decisions, and a lot of that is because we have been supported in a girls’ school environment,” Clodeta explains.
In this Jubilee year as ‘Pilgrims of Hope’, SAC students walk courageously in the footsteps of girls educated in the Mercy tradition of this College for 145 years, and in building the confidence to pursue their dreams, they encourage others to do the same.
[1] Quick Facts – ICGS Dr. Richard A. Holmgren, Allegheny College, Steeped in Learning: The Student Experience at All-Girls Schools
