A Brief History of CND in Vietnam
Recess at RM, 1962
CND: Congrégation Notre Dame des Chanoinesses de Saint Augustin.
CND was founded in France in 1597 by M. Alix Leclerc. Growing up in a privileged environment, Alix harbored a revolutionary vision: to provide an education to young women from all walks of life. For Alix, a housewife needed a certain level of education to raise her children and certain abilities to find work to contribute to the family finances. Subsequently was born CND, a congregation of nuns dedicated to the education of young women. The first tuition free school for underprivileged girls opened its doors in Poussay, Lorraine, France, in 1598.
In Vietnam in the 1930s, under the protection of Empress Nam Phuong who was an alumna of CND School in Paris, France, and with the help of her father, Mr. Nguyen Huu Hao, three schools for girls were founded with the arrival of twelve intrepid French nuns who traveled by ship from Marseille to Saigon, Vietnam. The first CND school, Notre Dame du Langbian (NDL), opened its doors in Dalat in 1935. Two years later, Notre Dame du Rosaire (NDR) was founded in Hanoi. In 1950, Regina Mundi (RM) was the third school to welcome students.
Pioneer Nuns of CND-VN
Empress Nam Phuong
The building of NDL in hilly Dalat encountered special difficulties. As related by a sister in her letter'" We don't have running water yet, but it only takes a rain shower to have enough drinking water; we don't have power, but we can see well enough to do our work by moonlight."
After the 1954 Geneva Accords that divided Vietnam into North VietNam and South Vietnam, Notre Dame du Rosaire was confiscated by the government of North VietNam and turned into the seat of the Institute of Tuberculosis Prevention. CND nuns focused their efforts on NDL and RM and poured their energy into their educational mission. They also embraced and lent support to newer congregations such as Les Amantes de la Croix Congregation.
After the Communist takeover of Vietnam in 1975, most of NDL and RM buildings and land holdings changed hands once again. NDL became a training center for ethnic minority children, and RM became Hong Gam School. All the nuns of European descent were expelled from Vietnam. The remaining Vietnamese nuns set out to live in small groups and supported themselves by teaching or working in other service-oriented occupations. Nevertheless, the torch that was lighted centuries ago kept on burning, and the dream still lived on thanks to the nuns' courage and dedication along with the support of CND in Europe and CND alumnae near and far.
A small community of nuns
Young nuns at RM, 2023
In 1991, in Khanh Hoi, a busy neighborhood of old Saigon with a sad reputation, on the site of an old pigsty, Anh Linh I was born. At first, it was a primary school that welcomed street children. With time, it grew into Anh Linh II, a middle school that was inaugurated in 2007 with adequate facilities for two hundred students and a dormitory for young women from out of town. Many generations of graduates of Anh Linh know by heart the song "Nơi đây là tổ ấm yêu thương của chúng mình" ( "This is our beloved home.") as the y came back to lend a hand to their alma mater to enrich its curriculum.
Little by little, several daycare centers sprang up around Anh Linh to free up young moms and allow them to work. Around the same time, in Hau Giang province where yearly monsoon floods kept girls home, a boarding school, Thanh An, came into being in 2010 to provide shelter and after school care for some two hundred girls.
Today, CND-VN these days is a thriving community of nuns dedicated to pursuing the vision of M. Alix Leclerc, the education of children and young women.