Father Cesar Gualandi

Father Cesar Gualandi was ordained priest a
few years after his brother, Father Joseph. He also felt the needs of his brother to help the deaf and so he joined Father Joseph in establishing the mission. He was the first Superior General of the congregation. His love and willingness to share his talents and abilities with the deaf had made him a shining example to the community.

Mother Orsola Mezzini

The Founder, wanting to extend his work of education to the female deaf also thought of establishing, along with the already existing Congregation for men, a congregation for women.

On October 1874, the right moment came. A 20-year old girl, Orsola Mezzini, accom- panied by her father came to the newly opened school for the deaf along Via Nosadella in Bologna to recommend a deaf boy from her home town. Joseph and Cesar immedi- ately saw in her the providential woman for whom they had been asking in assiduous prayers and awaited with lively hope.
They spoke to her of their work. She was deeply moved and on November 16 of the same year, she returned to stay for good to become the mother and teacher of all the students.

THE FOUNDER

Father Joseph Gualandi

Fr. Joseph Gualandi was born in Bologna, Italy on 1826. As a young priest, he felt the call to spread the Gospel among infidels, but the providential circumstance that brought him to the first communion ceremony of a young deaf girl steered him into the world of the deaf. After his first encounter with the deaf, a great apostolic fervor to serve them was born in him which would later determine his whole life's career, involving the whole Gualandi family, particularly Cesar, who was one of his brothers and also a priest. Both of them together studied the problems connected with the instruction and education of the deaf, contacting institutes for the deaf which were already existing in Italy and in the neighboring countries. Esteemed by all as an exceptional educator, father of the deaf and sympathetic figure of a priest, Fr. Joseph died in 1907 in the mother house of the Mission in Bologna.

THE MISSION IN THE PHILIPPINES

HISTORY, THE MISSION IN THE PHILIPPINES

When Sr. Clarisinda Cagang, (now serving as SLMD Superior) was still a young, lay student in the Philippines, she heard an inspiring talk on vocation by a Gualandi priest from Italy. She immediately sent her application letter to the Gualandi Fathers in Italy. That letter was then forwarded to the Suore Della Piccolla Missione (Sisters of the Little Mission for the Deaf) which, thereafter, was instructed by the Vatican to go to the Philippines and make a new home for their mission and ministry.

Thus, in March, 1988, Mother Vincenza, then the General Superior of the Congregation, and Mother Severina came to the Philippines and made a courtesy call on Cardinal Ricardo Vidal.

Then, on October 30, 1988, Sr. Elena Di Serafino and Sr. Antonietta Tegon were sent to formally set up the congregation in the country. They were assisted by Fr. Savino Castiglione who was a member of the Cebu-based Fathers of the Little Mission for the Deaf.

The Congregation of Sisters of the Little Mission for the Deaf (SLMD) established its first mission in Las Piñas City, then later put up missions in Cebu City and Naga City, Camarines Sur.

The first steps that the Mission took, aside from giving religious instruction in the schools and helping the indigent students, was to shoulder the salaries of teacher aides in public schools to improve the quality of education of the deaf children.

The establishment of a mission in Naga was through the invitation of then Archbishop Leonardo Z. Legaspi whom the sisters first met in Italy during a symposium. In March 2002, the sisters began their work among the deaf in the Bicol Region at a residence near the Archbishop’s Palace, gathering hearing-impaired persons, including those they had met in other places around the Bicol peninsula in earlier visits. The nuns taught catechism and basic literacy to the deaf using English sign language.

THE SCHOOL
At first, the Congregation was allowed by the Department of Education to operate as a tutorial-formation school and accept students. Eventually, as student population grew, the Las Pinas campus was recognized by DepEd in 2006 and given the permit to offer kindergarten.

In Naga City, the Congregation found a site in Balatas St. a few years after it arrived in the Bicol Region where, likewise, it was given permit by the Department of Education to operate as a tutorial-formation center. In 2015, it became a full-fledged school, offering, initially, education in the nursery and kindergarten level.

The erstwhile formation and tutorial centers in Las Pinas City and Naga City had flourished, growing in size to become - the Joseph Gualandi School for Hearing Impaired, giving education up to the senior high school level.