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About Us
History
THE STORY OF HAYDEN HALL
Hayden Hall was the brainchild and the spiritual aspiration of Fr. E.P.Burns, SJ., a Canadian Jesuit missionary, and Teacher, who had a dream that we should open a Drop-in Centre for present and past students of St. Joseph’s College in the heart of Darjeeling town, since our St. Joseph’s College campus was about 3 miles from the town proper. Fr. Burns felt that in this way we could help actualise the vision of the then Jesuit General, Fr. Pedro Arrupe, of developing ‘men and women for others’, through co-curricular social work activities for the poor of the town and villages of the Darjeeling Hills, especially underprivileged women and children, whom Fr. Burns served for 58 years. dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
Mike Adams, an English journalist, wrote an article on Hayden Hall, in 1975, in the English journal, Community Care-Social Work in Action, AND quotes Fr. Burns as confessing, “we suddenly realized that we were living in an ivory tower with our eyes closed to the surrounding problems.For years the college was a just a college and nothing else, but 5 years ago we decided that this was not good enough, We had a responsibility towards the rest of society…..our policy s to create a situation which enables educated local people to work with the uneducated…this is our simple philosophy, such as it is, and it has been working well thanks to them. How can you miss when you have such people, who know the language, and the local customs, working with you?” Fr. Burns believed that till he died – that the solution to India’s problems lie with the local lay Indian people, not the foreign missionaries. Hence he initially attracted and motivated 3 college students, who then became college teachers, to help him start the work at Hayden Hall, encouraging many students to lend a helping hand. That is why the early College Alumni were the mobilisers of the Hike for Health and Clean Darjeeling Campaigns, that began the strategic social mobilization of our people, particularly the youth of Darjeeling, for social justice causes.
Come work with us
We carry on our legacy to become a community of solution-seekers, not problem-makers. That we ‘become the change we want to see in the world’, and “men and women for others”.
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