Today, my MWI scholarship enables many women to have a profound theologian formation, and it thereby strengthens the church in India.

Sr. Helen Dantis, India

Sr. Helen Dantis | India

Sr. Helen Dantis was born in Mangalore, in the south Indian Karnataka, in 1966. She belongs to the native congregation of the Franciscan Ursuline Sisters. From 2006-2011, Sr. Dantis graduated with the help of a MWI scholarship at the Catholic University in Leuven in the field of 'Systematic Theology' on the topic: 'Congregation life for the creation of alternative communities serving God's kingdom as an option for the poor people'.

The graduation enabled Sr. Dantis to teach Theology at a theologian institute in India. Because even if the interest of women in theological studies and academic qualifications in this subject is rising there are actually rarely women teaching theology in India.

Since her return to India, Sr. Helen Dantis has been teaching Theology at the Mater Dei Institute in Goa. The Mater Dei Institute is affiliated to the renowned Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth' Pontifical Institute for Philosophy and Theology in Pune that is directed by Jesuits. The institute is subordinated to the Conference of the Congregations in India. It provides women with profound formation in the fields of Theology, Philosophy and „Leadership“, in order to strengthen the role of women in the Indian Church and to thereby give them the possibility to actively shape the life and structures of the Church also at higher levels of hierarchy structures.