Soon after you leave this school, you usually start missing it. A lot. Much more than you thought you would, and this is not a feeling that you can just shake off. You miss your classrooms, the food, the football pitch. You miss sitting on the benches under the trees with the breeze in your face during your free periods. And above all, you miss your friends. Sure, many of your memories remain pristine, but you find yourself wanting to make even more of them.
We, the Royal College Port Louis Alumni Association (RCPLAA), aim to help you do just that. We are a non-sectarian association founded in 2007 and comprising former students from many generations. Our seat is, of course, at RCPL, and membership is open to any former RCPL student aged 18 and over. Our Managing Committee - elected annually at the Annual General Meeting - meets up regularly to discuss matters at hand and projects in the ever-friendly atmosphere that characterizes us.
To promote closer relations among members, we regularly hold an end-of-year banquet at various locations, which is attended by hundreds of former students, many of whom are accompanied by their partners and children. Delicious food, gifts, beautiful speeches and heart-warming anecdotes fuel the night, and former classmates finally get to see each other after years and years of cancelled plans. Those nostalgia-charged moments bring huge grins, laughs… and sometimes tears. Numbers are exchanged, old friendships are rekindled and new ones are made.
The association is equally heavily involved in the current affairs of the school, with the aim to help the current and future students author new chapters in the glorious history of this prestigious institution. We collaborate with the RCPL management team and established a line of communication with the Rector. Along the years, RCPLAA members have generously contributed to projects like the revamping of the school canteen which now boasts a beautiful porch. A significant donation was made to the Parents and Teachers Association to mark the 90th anniversary of RCPL, and new goal posts was a particularly popular gift from us to the students, given how high football ranks among the hobbies of Mauritians.
If you are keen to walk down memory lane with your friends, to further strengthen this close-knit community of ours, or to give back to the place where you learned for life and not for school, the Royal College Port Louis Alumni Association extends its warm welcome to you.
Active Members participating regularly to our events.
Executive Members voted democratically every year during the Annual General Meeting.
Facebook Followers keeping abreast with new developments/events happening at the association.
Years of existance, bringing happiness through reminiscence to Old Royals.
Our other hallmark event is the Saturday Detention; a fun day held on the school premises. Our first two editions were each attended by about 700 people, and we expect more of the same for the next one in 2023. School-branded merchandise is sold and refreshments are made available. Football and volleyball knockout competitions are held for those still willing to brave the Port-Louis sun, while badminton, dominoes, cards and e-games are available to others. Many are content with merely stepping into the classrooms that watched them grow up. Some even luckier ones find desks that were theirs years ago! The Saturday Detention also enables several former students to show their children around the school, probably with hopes of inspiring them to try their best to themselves be part of the rich history of RCPL later.
RCPL History
Indeed, RCPL has a storied history. Officially, it has existed for 93 years. Yet, most connected to the school would argue that is it in fact more than 200 years old. It was in 1817 that then-prince George ordered that French-built “Collège Colonial“ be renamed Royal College. In 1892, a cyclone with off-the-charts violence damaged the school building and classes were temporarily moved to the Line Barracks.
By the end of that year, the foundation stone of the new Royal College building had been laid. A handful of years later, though, the plague forced students to flee Port Louis for Curepipe, with the school building then becoming a hospital. The end of the epidemic saw the reopening of Royal College in Port Louis in 1929, this time as La School.
Executive members
President: Sooraj Jeetun 52576891
Vice President: Dawood Jhurry 59031140
Secretary: Jayen Teerovengadum 52581961
Assistant Secretary: Farhaad Tegally 57611969
Treasurer: Rajnish Gajeelee 57275143
Assistant Treasurer: Harivansh Poorooye 59633023
Contact Us
Cassis,
Port Louis.
rcplalumniassociation@gmail.com