School Sisters of Notre Dame

The School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND) are a worldwide Catholic religious congregation of women founded in 1833 in Bavaria, Germany, by Karolina Gerhardinger, who took the religious name Mary Theresa of Jesus, centered on education at the primary, secondary and post-secondary levels alongside ministries in nursing, legal work, pastoral care and social justice advocacy. The congregation dedicates itself to prayer, community life and ministry with particular emphasis on serving poor girls and women, immigrants and migrants, and by the mid twentieth century had established its generalate in Rome; it counted more than 3,000 sisters across 34 countries in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Oceania. It is not to be confused with the separate French teaching congregation the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, founded earlier and independently.