Helen Jerwood’s School – Houses within

For empowering woman, educate them

Save the female foetus, treat them a human

Feed them, clothe them, clean them, love them

School them, educate them, let them be a woman

Mrs Helen Jerwood, missionary from United Kingdom, worked for the purpose of education for girls in the days of British India.  She founded a couple of school in Delhi, St Thomas’ being one of them. With ideals and undying mission she went from house to house to kindle the light of education for the girl child.

Ms Helen Jerwood

Mrs Helen Jerwood’s vision and her untiring devotion have given St. Thomas' a glorious foundation. Since then, the principals – Ms Ayesha Jacob, Mrs Joy Michael, Mrs Cynthia Manoharan and Mrs Anuradha Amos have striven hard to follow her ideals.

As I take myself, and the readers through this journey, I realize that full justice is not being given to each post. Therefore I decided to carry on with the series after the challenge as well (not as frequent as AtoZ Challenge).

Anyways, apart from the founder’s introduction, H post will be incomplete without talking about the school houses. No prizes for guessing the house names.

Madam Curie (Red house) 


Marie Skłodowska-Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to win in two fields, and the only person to win in multiple sciences. (Source Wikipedia)

Chand Bibi (Yellow house)

Chand Bibi (1550–1599 CE), also known as Chand Khatun or Chand Sultana, was an Indian Muslim woman warrior. She acted as the Regent of Bijapur (1580–90) and Regent of Ahmednagar (1596–99). Chand Bibi is best known for defending Ahmednagar against the Mughal forces of Emperor Akbar. (Source Wikipedia)

Sarojini Naidu (Blue house)

Sarojini Naidu, born as Sarojini Chattopadhyay was a child prodigy, Indian independence activist and poet. Naidu served as the first governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949; the first woman to become the governor of an Indian state. She was the second woman to become the president of the Indian National Congress in 1925 and the first Indian woman to do so. (Source Wikipedia)

Nightingale (Green house)

Florence Nightingale, (12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a celebrated English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing. She came to prominence while serving as a nurse during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was known as "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night. . (Source Wikipedia)

Each house has its own election, through a democratic process, where the students elect their house representatives – the house head and the two deputies. The houses compete with each other in several activities – academic, co curricular and sports.

In my early years, I was in Chand Bibi. But I was young, and did not understand the meaning of houses. Later on I was moved to Sarojini Naidu. And that was my house – the blue house. We had small badges which we had to pin up on our shirts every day. Scarves were introduced later, in 1990s.  Every Friday, we had to wear the house scarf, which was an additional matter of pride.

Proud STSers

Short note: Now I realize from where the feminism comes in me. 

This post is dedicated to the A-to-Z blogging challenge - the largest Blog Challenge in the history of Blogkind. My selected theme is "memories of St. Thomas' "- my Alma mater. This is the seventh post of the challenge, and is linked to the letter H - H for Helen Jerwood (founder) and school houses. 

Linking this post to UBC too.