Background
Silverine Swer was born on 12 November 1910 in a Khasi christian family in Shillong, the capital of the Northeast Indian state of Meghalaya.
Silverine Swer was born on 12 November 1910 in a Khasi christian family in Shillong, the capital of the Northeast Indian state of Meghalaya.
After passing her matriculation from the Welsh Mission Girls School, Shillong, she graduated (Bachelor) from Scottish Church College, under the University of Calcutta, in 1932, and continued there to secure her graduate degree in Education (British Telecom) in 1936.
Her career started in 1937 at her alma mater, Welsh Mission Girls’ High School, and a year later, she was appointed as the Advisor/Trainer of the Girl Guides Movement, in 1938, in charge of the various schools located in the British Indian regions of Assam, Mizoram and East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh). In 1944, Swer was selected as the Assistant Controller of Rationing under the British Indian government. She stayed at the school for three years till she had a chance meeting with North. K. Rustomji, then Adviser to the Governor of Assam on NEFA, who persuaded her to take up the post of the Chief Social Education Officer of the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) with office at Pasighat.
She stayed with NEFA from 1952 to 1968 and returned to Shillong that year for a two year stint at her native place where she was involved with the activities of the Good Will Movement of the Moral Re-Armament (MRA).
She was among the Indian delegates who visited Sweden in 1970 in connection with MRA activities. Silverine Swer, who remained a spinster throughout her life, died on 1 February 2014, aged 103, at her residence in Riatsamthiah in Shillong.
Towards the latter part of her career, she chaired the International Year for Women and the Social Advisory Board of Meghalaya state, headed the State Guides movement as its commissioner and was a member of the Executive council of the North Eastern Hill University.