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You can now email your sponsored child.
You can also email Regina Pacis direct with questions, if you wish.

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(1)Where do I send my letters?
Send all correspondance to:

Regina Pacis School
c/o Sister Margaret Fernandes
for: (your child's name)
Seth Motishah Lane, Victoria Gardens
Mumbai, India
400 027

Please write your return address on the outside of the envelope only: do not include it on the inside of your letter.

(2)How often should I write? What should I write?
Please try to write about every six or eight weeks. Correspondance doesn't have to be fancy and you don't have to write a long letter! Ackowledge her last letter to you, respond to any questions she asked in her letter to you or comment on things she said in her letter, and then ask a few questions yourself.
Or...tell her about yourself - she will be so curious! Tell about your family, your pets, your house, your yard. What does it look like? Tell her what you did this weekend - did you work on the house? Go on a hike? Read a book? Watch TV? Visit with family? Describe the event and don't forget the smallest details: she probably won't have similar experiences so won't be able to imagine unless you give a lot of details. What about your work? What do you do? What is the name of your best friend? Your children? Ask her a few questions she can answer: What is the weather like in Mumbai? What is her favorite color? Does she like cricket? Who is her favorite player?

(3)Can I include little gifts in my letters?
NO. Please.
Photos are wonderful to send. Indian culture loves photos, of friends and family and events - they will be shared, appreciated and displayed. They will be amazed seeing how different you live, what you look like, what you wear.

(4)Will my letters make it all the way to India?
Most likely. There is the possibility, however, that your letter may get "lost" at customs or in the mail. If you mail a letter, Regina Pacis will attempt to email you when it is received. If you feel your letter may not have reached your child, please email.
If you put anything in your letter that is bulky, it will be suspect and perhaps opened by the mail system prior to the children receiving it. Please re-read (3) above.

(5)Why can't I include my return address inside my letter to my sponsored child?
For your privacy.
Your child will cherish your letters. She will show them to her friends. She will show them to any family she has. She will brag about you. You will become bigger than life. It is therefore important that your contact information be managed by the Sisters in charge to avoid receiving letters from anyone besides your sponsored child and Regina Pacis.

(6)Is there anything I should know about the culture or the girls?
Good question.

Regina Pacis likes the girls to have uninhibited communication with you. That means whatever the girls write, they write on their own without dictation from the teachers or Sisters. This has proven to be rewarding and interesting (and sometimes eyebrow-raising) for the Sponsors.

Each girl is unique in how she communicates. Very young girls have limited written English communication skills and older girls typically have excellent written English skills. Older girls especially love to write and receive letters. They usually worry that their letters won't be acceptable to you and re-write them in better handwriting or on nicer paper. The girls come from impoverished life conditions and their lives are difficult - sometimes their letters can be sad, sometimes they are dramatic, sometimes they are funny, but they always want to please you.

Please know that it is considered a very polite and endearing compliment for a younger person to address an older person as "aunty" and/or "uncle." Your child/ren will therefore address you as "aunty" and/or "uncle." It is actually quite common to address letters to "aunty" only, assuming, of course, that "uncle" is included. We are working to remind the girls to pay attention to "aunty and uncle" or just "aunty" or "uncle." This is cultural, don't be offended.

Also know that the children are growing up in a culture where it is assumed every person has a religous faith and they are very accepting of all faiths. Their culture tends to be very proud and openly expressive about faith, whatever faith they have, so do not be surprised to see letters thanking God for your help or praying to God for your health or sending prayers for you. Their faith may be Hindu or Muslim or Christian, but acknowledging God and sending prayers is a culturally accepted way of showing respect and good wishes for you and your happiness.

(7)Can I see some letters the children have written? To give me an idea of what they write about?
Sure thing. Here are a couple:

"Dear Aunty Hello and Hope you are well by the grace of god I am very thankful to you that you are sponsoring me...my mother had a very big problem of my fees as I payed my first 400rs at the last moment when it was the last day of my exams!...I could not understand what your heart said and you sponsored me but whatever it is through you I learnt a lesson of charity, peace, hope and love. I always thought that foreigners are never to be able to live in India as India is united and foreigners wanted to seperate us but you changed my mind...I was quite nervous when they took my photograph as many of my friends told me that you are going to print in the newspaper of your country but it actually was not like that. They were wrong. I don't know that how I will thank you, you have solved a very big problem of my mother & mine. THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH..."

And yet another,

"Dear Aunty Hope you are well by the grace of god I am keeping fine here. Thanking you once again for sponsoring me. Aunty do you know after my fees were paid I was tension-free and I put my mind into my studies and my goal was to be a rank-holder and I did it too. And it was my hard work I think which I passed in all my subjects and I got 25th rank but my goal still ist to be a rank holder and I have decided to pass in my finals...I really enjoy the activities of the school like Parents Day Rehersals Tell A Joke Competition in which I got a price for I came first in my class...Thank you once again for sponsoring me and best of luck for your future planings and I promise you I'll do better for my finals..."

(8) Can I see an example of a letter from a sponsor to a child?
Of course! Here is good one:

"18 August, 1999

Dear Sana,

It has been a long time since I have written to you. Uncle Harold and I are so pleased that you did well on your examinations. Congratulations on your good grades. Now that you are in Standard 4 you will have to study very hard so that you will do well again.

Our summer has been much cooler than usual. Other parts of our country including New Jersey, where our daughter and her husband and two daughters live, has been much hotter than usual. I think that the weather has been very unusual this year. I hope that you have had sufficient rain in India this year.

Our granddaughter, Keisha, and our grandson, Justin, have been coming to our house often this summer while they are having school vacation. We have a swimming pool near our house and they like to swim. They have become very good swimmers. They were on the swimming team. We went to their swimming meets with other teams to watch them swim. Soon, on 1 September, they will go back to school. Keisha will be in second grade and Justin will be in seventh grade. He will go to a school called junior high school. Justin has also been practicing football, which is called soccer in the United States, this summer. We have also gone to watch his team play other teams.

Our family from New Jersey will come to visit us in three days. They will stay for two weeks. We will all go to camp by a lake on an island. We will have to take a ferry boat to get there. We went there once before many years ago. It is a beautiful place.

I am very sorry to hear that your grandfather died. I want to send Uncle Harold's and my sympathy to you and your family.

We hope that you are studying hard so that you will do well in Standard 4.

Best wishes to you and your family.

Love,
Aunty Susan"