Ste Anthony’s parish hall opens |07 January 2023

The newly renovated St Anthony’s parish hall (Photos: Emma Ah-Kong)

The St Anthony’s parish in Anse Etoile now has a new parish hall, following the renovation of a dilapidated building, located close to the school and the church.

The parish hall’s official opening took place earlier this week in the presence of the Roman Catholic Diocese Bishop, Alain Harel, the parish priest, Father Gabriel Siransy, and parishioners as well as Herman Maria, the contractor who partly funded the project and carried out the renovation work.

It followed ten months of renovation work, which started in March last year and ended in November.

According to the vice-chairperson of the parish’s Economic Committee, Jacquelin Dugasse, plans to renovate the building dated back to over eight years ago.

He said the parish had since been raising funds through various activities as well as donations from different establishments, to be able to carry out the work, which was estimated to be around R3 million.

Speaking to Seychelles NATION on Thursday, Mr Dugasse said they eventually managed to collect R900,000 from the parishioners, R400,000 was funded by the Vatican under a special fund for Catholic dioceses worldwide, while a further R1.5 million needed to finance the work, was donated by contractor Herman Maria, who is also involved with the St Anthony’s parish.

“We had to renovate the entire building since it was dilapidated as the whole structure had been made out of mortar,” explained Mr Dugasse.

The new St Anthony’s parish hall now has a new façade with all the facilities, which include three main areas to host activities.

”The largest space can hold up to 200 people, while the two smaller areas can be used as meeting rooms, and accommodate up to 15 people at once for meetings. We also have four storage areas, three of which can be rented out and a space to be used as canteen, which will also be rented out,” explained Mr Dugasse.

He added that the parish hall, although reserved mainly for parish-related activities such as catechism and meetings will also be available for rent to the public.

“The hall will be free for our activities but it will be rented out to the public when it is not in use as we need money for the hall’s daily maintenance including covering our utilities,” said Mr Dugasse.

The old building was initially used as a chapel in the 1950s, before the construction of the district’s church. It was then transferred to the Education ministry and used as a crèche, as well as a library, before being returned to the Catholic diocese.

Diane Larame