BAGI, India (UCAN) – In a rare thank-you gesture, former students of a Jesuit school have funded a new school building for village girls in eastern India.

Father Andre Bruylants inaugurates the new school by cutting a ribbon as Father Jerome Francis (extreme left) looks on

Jesuit Father Andre Bruylants opened the new school building at Bagi village, some 20 kilometers south of Kolkata, on Sunday, the day before International Women’s Day.

Alumnorum Societas (ALSOC), the old boys’ association of St. Xavier’s Collegiate School in Kolkata, provided the funding to help girls’ education, its secretary Noomi Dorab Mehta said.

Association members contributed money and materials to complete the 12-room, two-storied building, which cost about 3 million rupees (US$67,000), Mehta said.

Some 150 students from grade five to 10 presently study at the 14-year-old privately-managed school, said principal Oli Kole. She said she was “excited” to have a new school building.

Kole, 32, said there are no other girls’ schools within a radius of five kilometers. She expressed hope that the new building would help give more girls an education.

School management committee member, Surya Sen Patro, said before ALSOC stepped in, the school lacked basic amenities. He said they could not get government help because the school was not officially recognized.

Father Bruylants said school officials sought his help in 2004 to get assistance for the school, which was “in a terrible condition.”

The 84-year-old Belgian missioner received help from the Loreto nuns in the city in repairing the roof, but no other help was forthcoming.

The missioner, a former principal of St Xavier’s Collegiate School and former president of ALSOC, then looked to his former students.

Such help “is also part of their commitment to society, and the education of young girls was a big concern for them,” Father Bruylants told UCA News.

Father Jerome Francis, principal of St. Xavier’s Collegiate School, said at the school building opening ceremony that ALSOC would continue supporting the school.

The Jesuit priest urged school staff and former students to do their best to ensure quality education for all young girls in the area.