A Global Commitment to Education

Founding and Staffing Schools

The Religious of Jesus and Mary proudly continue in the ministry of education. Today, the USA-Haiti Province sponsors Thevenet Montessori School in Highland Mills, New York, and we are co-founders of Washington School for Girls in Washington, DC.

Education is key component of the RJM Mission in Haiti. It includes leadership of school like Lekòl Jezi-Mari in Gros Morne, support for “chapel schools” often in remote communities, and sponsorship of a residence for students in Port-au-Prince. Many of the nutrition programs the RJM coordinate and support in Haiti often feed children directly in the schools that the RJM support. In Jean-Rabel, the RJM host a workshop at their home to train adult women to make and sell handicrafts, in Gros Morne, the RJM have partnered with the Montfortian Fathers to start a post-secondary technical school to teach young adults to become farmers with the agricultural, business, and spiritual tools to lead in their communities in developing economically and environmentally sustainable agrobusinesses.

Sr. Pat Brito, RJM, serves as the principal of St. Frances de Chantal School in The Bronx, near where the RJM had been the longtime leaders of the former St. John’s School in the Kingsbridge neighborhood. The RJM legacy of St. Mark School in Hyattsville, MD, continues since 2010 through Saint Francis International School (SFIS is very near to where the former Regina High School was located).

Historically, the first RJM schools in New England were founded to serve francophone migrant families from Canada working in the textile mills and the RJM schools in El Paso and San Diego were founded to support families that had migrated from Mexico. Click here to learn about a special project that sisters in the Washington, DC, and Maryland communities are participating in that is supporting the education of children in refugee families.

In July of 2023, leaders of the Religious of Jesus Mary along with representatives of the RJM provinces, schools, and ministries throughout the world gathered in Mexico City to discuss Pope Francis’ call for a global alliance that joins efforts so that education generates peace, justice and acceptance among peoples. In response the congregation has expressed a formal Commitment to the Global Compact on Education in all RJM schools and ministries.

If you went to a school where the RJM sisters taught, we would love to hear from you! Please fill out the form below so that we can contact you and keep you up to date about what the sisters are doing to continue their education ministry today.