What is the official name of the Handmaid training facility?

The Handmaid training facility is officially called the Rachel and Leah Re-education Center.

The facility is more commonly known as the Red Center, a nickname tied both to the red clothing worn by Handmaids and to the center’s re-education function. There, Aunts indoctrinate fertile women into Gilead’s religious ideology and prepare them for forced reproductive service in Commanders’ households.

Its name comes from the biblical story of Rachel and Leah in Genesis. Rachel, unable to have children, gives her handmaid Bilhah to Jacob as a surrogate; Leah later does the same with her handmaid Zilpah. Gilead uses this story to present the Handmaids’ exploitation as sacred precedent.

The Red Center is not simply a school. It is a coercive institution where women are isolated, renamed, monitored, punished, and taught to accept Gilead’s hierarchy. Aunt Lydia is one of its most prominent instructors, and June, Moira, Janine, Emily, and other Handmaids pass through its training system.