I consider it a blessing and a privilege to give this message of felicitation to the Advanced Level Group Project Committee of 2011 batch of Sacred Heart Convent, Galle, Sri Lanka on the eve of launching the school's website www.sacredheartconvent.lk  The students' arduous effort to put Sacred Heart Convent on the world map is indeed a laudable endeavour.

Today most of the institutions have adopted this procedure, as this has come to be the predominant mode of communication highway, the world over. Unless we too link ourselves to this lightning speed communication highway, we would not be in a position to air our views pertaining to school's progress expeditiously.

Sacred Heart Convent has served the country for one hundred and thirteen years since its inception in 1896 and I consider it only too fitting to recall its worthy beginnings. The urgent need for education of young girls in Galle was the beginning of Sacred Heart Convent. The Galle mission which had been in charge of the O.M.I. Mission was handed over in 1895 to the Jesuits and with this change the Good Shepherd nuns who had been in charge of the girls' section of the mixed school in Galle returned to Colombo. Bishop Van Reeth, whose sister, the Rev .Mother Bernadette, was the Superior General of the Sisters of Charity in Belgium, thereupon asked for a band of Sisters of Charity of Jesus & Mary to be sent out to carry on the educational work of girls in Galle. At the time there was a great need for such an institution and in answer to the Bishop's request, on the 4th November 1896; five Sisters of Charity of Jesus & Mary left Belgium for Ceylon. They were: Mother Amelie, Sr.William, Sr. Marcia, Sr. Alberta and Sr. Alexandra. The Sisters were accompanied on their journey right up to Galle by the two Jesuit Priests, Rev. Fathers D' Herde and Standaert. ( more )