“With­in these hal­lowed halls our hearts will linger long with mem­o­ries dear”…

A line in the school song that has res­onat­ed with the St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School (SAGHS) Class of 1993, as they re­unit­ed to cel­e­brate 30 years of friend­ship and sis­ter­hood, firm­ly es­tab­lished in their years spent at this renowned in­sti­tu­tion.

Along the jour­ney of life’s path­way, the build­ing of ca­reers, nur­tur­ing of fam­i­lies, the cel­e­bra­tion of suc­cess­es and the nav­i­gat­ing life’s crises—it was the re­silience and em­pow­er­ment em­bed­ded in these young girls by the then prin­ci­pal Dr An­na Ma­hase and the ded­i­cat­ed staff, in­clud­ing the sup­port and aux­il­iary staff, that has al­lowed these now strong and in­de­pen­dent trail­blaz­ers to thrive and suc­ceed in what­ev­er path they chose. 

This of course cou­pled with the deep bond and un­wa­ver­ing sup­port found with­in the ladies of this year body it­self, so much so that some jour­neyed from over­seas to share in the night’s cel­e­bra­tion.

As suc­cess­ful as all these women have be­come in their own right in the 30 years since their grad­u­a­tion, on this evening they were their teenage selves, free of any judge­ment or airs, chat­ting ex­cit­ed­ly about their fond and pre­cious mem­o­ries that linger with­in those hal­lowed halls….their school day trysts, car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tions with cos­tumes cre­ative­ly craft­ed from garbage bags or cro­cus bags (which they won ever year!), heav­i­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed May Fi­es­tas, and school house friend­ly ri­val­ries.  

Of course, no re­union of this class would ever be com­plete with­out the re­mem­brance of those sis­ters who have passed on but still re­main part of the fab­ric of the sis­ter­hood of the plaid.

It was ev­i­dent from the beam­ing smiles, warm and lov­ing hugs, and in­fec­tious laugh­ter that all in at­ten­dance thor­ough­ly en­joyed the rem­i­nisc­ing of the good old days, cul­mi­nat­ing in the joy­ous and un­apolo­getic slight­ly off-key singing of the Al­ma Mater Song, a mem­o­ry that will sure­ly be re­mem­bered till the next re­union!

The im­por­tance of cre­at­ing a Sis­ter­hood

To each per­son, Sis­ter­hood may mean some­thing dif­fer­ent, how­ev­er, as a whole it en­cap­su­lates an un­con­di­tion­al al­liance be­tween like-mind­ed in­di­vid­u­als who em­pow­er and lift one an­oth­er.

A Sis­ter­hood strength­ens your well­be­ing

A Sis­ter­hood can help per­son­al well-be­ing through fe­male con­nec­tions that have been sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed to help in­di­vid­u­als thrive. Stud­ies have shown that fe­male con­nec­tions and friend­ships are like­ly to de­crease one’s stress lev­els which can ul­ti­mate­ly help im­prove men­tal health. Hav­ing a strong Sis­ter­hood can help im­prove a woman’s life through the strong emo­tion­al bonds that are formed.

A Sis­ter­hood cre­ates a sense of com­mu­ni­ty

A Sis­ter­hood can cre­ate strong con­nec­tions that last for­ev­er, while al­so bring­ing a sense of be­long­ing to peo­ple who might feel iso­lat­ed and alone. Hav­ing a sense of be­long­ing is so im­por­tant to all women and girls, and the feel­ing of ‘cre­at­ing a tribe’ can help in­di­vid­u­als build con­fi­dence with­in them­selves.

A Sis­ter­hood em­pow­ers and in­spires

A Sis­ter­hood can help women be­come the best ver­sion of them­selves grow­ing and de­vel­op­ing in all as­pects of life. Through per­son­al strug­gles and feel­ings of de­feat, a Sis­ter­hood can help en­cour­age one an­oth­er to achieve things that in­di­vid­u­als might not have thought pos­si­ble. Achieve­ments, no mat­ter how big or small, can help to in­spire a Sis­ter­hood col­lec­tive­ly, and with the sup­port of a pow­er­ful group who have each oth­er’s best in­ter­ests at heart, it can help to build con­fi­dence to reach new heights to­geth­er.