About the Sisters of Notre Dame

Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur

St. Julie Billiart founded the Sisters of Notre Dame to make known God’s goodness, especially among the poorest and most abandoned people in the world. Today, Sisters of Notre Dame work with refugees in London, street children in Nairobi, immigrant farm workers in Florida, AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe… and always, women and children, who are among the very poorest.

We work to enable those who are materially poor to obtain what is rightfully theirs by changing unjust structures. We believe that education in varied forms is the best way to accomplish this goal.

Sisters of Notre Dame are recognized as outstanding educators and, over the years, thousands of Sisters have taught children and adults on five continents. Although many Sisters continue to staff schools,others have chosen to work with the homeless, AIDS patients, the elderly poor — and countless others in need of help. All of this activity has one aim: to proclaim in our time, as St. Julie did in hers, that God is good!

As Sisters of Notre Dame, we believe that:

• Social justice is at the very heart of the Christian call in today’s world.
• Impelled by Julie’s passion that everyone experience the goodness of God, we commit ourselves to help to create a more just and loving world.
• The causes of poverty are deeply rooted in unjust social and economic structures.
• We, therefore, commit ourselves to deepen our understanding of the systemic causes of poverty and to take action which will benefit poor people. We are committed to this through our Constitutions.