Alumni Affairs

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Giving Back to SMS

Alumni have donated cash to SMS individually and in groups, a rupee at a time, or more handsome amounts.

There have also been donations in expertise and effort. Let's get into some of the causes and mechanics of donation.

Causes

The mission of the Christian Brothers is evolving. At one time it was entirely teaching, top quality of course, and that spawned schools like SMS, that groomed a national and international intellectual elite. The CBs' mission is now increasingly to mix in outreach to those starved of learning (and breakfast too), which was what motivated Edmund Rice to found the CBs in education-deprived Ireland 200 years ago. This 20-minute documentary by Edmund Rice Development (India) is a tour of several CB projects in northeast India. The (Irish) narrator begins: “There has been talk that the Brothers have moved to areas of greater poverty and deprivation so as to be relevant to the needs of the country at this time. Two Calcutta-based ex-pupils, who wish to remain anonymous, decided to go and see for themselves what exactly the Brothers were doing.” Heads-up: there's no audio the first 30 seconds.

Back in Abu, there have been a few initiatives among alumni to raise funds in concerted drives. The most recent is particularly congruent with the modern mission of the CBs.

2023	Current	Edi Alva (1967) and Br Raj Noronha (1976, featured in the doco above) set out to revive the Bal Vidya Mandir for Sitavan. Sitavan is a slum village a couple of minutes down Tiger Path, the new de facto living quarters for bearers and helper staff who used to live in tubular buildings down from the bofs. Bal Vidya Mandir is an initiative by SMS to educate the Sitavan kids in basic literacy and maths, and to teach vocational skills to dropouts. This is a substantial ongoing project, with a page of its own.
2013	Concluded	Alan Jobard (1981) led a donation drive to renovate the kitchen
2010	Concluded	Alums from the 1950s, led by Bob Amore (1957), and 1970s, led by Frankie Dias (1973), ran a contest, the Upper Classmen versus the Young Bucks, and put up a sizeable donation. There are varying estimates of the yield, maybe Rs 10-25 lakh. It was originally intended to have been a Goyal Memorial Bursary Fund in memory of beloved Hindi teacher Mr LR Goyal, and a Keane Memorial Fund in memory of Br JA Keane, principal in the 1960s and 1970s. Neither label took shape and the cheque wound up being an untied token of gratitude.
1999	Concluded	Alumni contributed towards the swimming pool
1987	Concluded	Frank John Dias (1969) solicited donations, not for SMS, but for video equipment for Our Lady of Salvation School, Dadar

This is not an exhaustive list of alumni philanthropy. The Hall of Fame lists other wonderful initiatives not directed at SMS.

How to Donate

You can donate to a specific project or the school's general fund, at SMS or for the Christian Brothers projects nationally.

Receiving donations can be a delicate matter as there are now tight government controls on the flow of funds, particularly to faith-based institutions, particularly from abroad. The Congregation of Christian Brothers in India (CCBI) at St Columba's, Delhi, functions as the CB headquarters in India, and is set up with the administrative infrastructure to process donations on behalf of individual CB schools. The recommended path is:

1. Discuss SMS needs with the Principal
2. Send funds to CCBI, earmarking for school(s)/project(s) as appropriate. There's a form to be filled out, which differs depending on whether the fund source is Indian or foreign. (This being a universally accessible web site, the account numbers in these forms are masked out; you'll have to get them from SMS in Step a.) Send a copy of the form to SMS by way of heads-up.
3. If you don't receive an acknowledgement and tax receipt in 3 weeks, follow-up with SMS. Remittances, particularly from overseas, can go astray. Even if you do receive an ack, have a follow-up chat with the Principal to be sure that it came from SMS, not an imposter.

If you live abroad

Short answer, Editor's choice: Have someone in India front the funds, and reimburse them (in cash, to avoid an unwarranted tax levy on them). Better yet, reimburse them in your currency so that they have funds to spend when they come and visit you.

Long answer: It costs ~$30-40 to wire funds, maybe a little less for a hardcopy bank draft (which can get lost in the mail). Ask about a wire transfer in the currency of the recipient (rupees), rather than your currency. That may reduce or eliminate the charges. On the Indian side, the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) governs some of this. The overseas-donation form includes items such as a copy of your passport, Income Tax Department's Permanent Account Number (PAN) if you have one, and Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) ID if you have one. It's a lot to navigate, and a lot of personal information to send over insecure comms channels. You may want to pool funds with friends, to organize a single remittance. Being a foreign donation, you probably won't get a charitable tax deduction in your country.