Dec 7, 2007

Dear Friends

Women Vision presents to you Lorna Fernandes of Bangalore. A missionary, a visionary and an achiever. To her the sky is the limit and she believes in giving back to Society in whatever way she can,  crossing all barriers of caste and creed. Her main goal is to work for women’s rights and educating especially girls (in India) so that they can have a better life.

Eleanor Roosevelt had rightly said  "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do" and here we have this testimony of Mrs.Lorna  Fernandes to prove it so.

Lorna was born in Mangalore to Late Lawrence Mathias of Valencia and the Late Kitty Mathias (D’Silva) of Falnir. Her parents were expatriates during those early days in the 1940’s, when her father left Mangalore to seek a better life for his family, to the shores of Abadan (now Iran) and later Kuwait where Lorna spent a part of her life

She did her early schooling at St. Mary’s High School  and graduated from St. Agnes, Mangalore. She had keen passion for music and became an accomplished violinist. She then enrolled at Roshni Nilaya to pursue her Master’s in Social Work, but her handsome knight in shining armour Walter Fernandes, hailing from Bejai, Mangalore came to steal her heart away and take her to Kuwait. Walter hails from Bejai, and  schooled at St. Anthony’s in Padua and  St. Aloysius, Mangalore. He is the nephew of Dulcine “teacher”  who is quite famous for her discipline. He is also the nephew of Fr. Paul Fernandes who recently passed away this year at the age of 93.

With marriage, Walter and Lorna were blessed with two loving kids, Charlotte and Everette. This did not deter Lorna from continuing with her professional career. She began teaching at the Indian School, Kuwait and later at Carmel School, where she waspopularly known for her dedicated service Her students who are all the over world still cherish with fond memory how Lorna used to train theim not only in musical bot other extra curricular social activities.

As the children grew up Walter and Lorna felt it advisable to move the children to Bangalore and thus Lorna's world was now the town of Bangalore where she started doing her social service to the community.

• She was the Secretary to the K.C.A  (Kanara Catholic Association). and worked to introduce fun-filled social activities for the members especially during Christmas  time.
• She was also the Secretary of the Kuwait and Middle East Association for a period of 14 years and lent her expertise to providing social activities for the members  of that organization.
• One noteworthy activity was the provision of food to the orphans at Fr. Tauro’s orphanage in Bangalore.
• She then joined C.C.W.I. (Council of Catholic Women of India )and served as National General Secretary for 3 terms (12 years)   During this tenure of 12 years,  she instituted two major projects focused on the environment and the other on the care for the elderly. The environmental program was a joint venture with REDS  (Rag Boys Association), to collect and dispose of garbae as well as recyle, thus earning an income for REDS. The Corporation of Bangalore took note of this and  tried to institute this in other parts of Bangalore. The other major program focused on training School drop outs (girls) in home based care for the elderly. This was  coordinated through St. John’s Medical college, where 10 batches of girls went through the program and then were placed with families who needed this type o