Over the last couple of weeks students from years 8, 9 and 10 have been engaged in what we refer to as ‘Community Serve’. Our focus has been the improvement of the grounds at Mount Penang with tasks including weeding, clearing overgrowth and rubbish collection. I was surprised to see how neglected the site had become over the years and in what incredible condition it must have once been. Hopefully over time, with the vision that we all share for IFS, the site will be returned to its former glory.
Asking young adolescent students to work physically hard for extended periods of time is probably expecting too much, and, as I’d imagined, for most the effort could only be sustained for short amounts of time. Having said that, there were several students whose efforts were amazing, who were able to maintain their focus and dedication to the tasks for the duration of the time we were working. Fabulous! You may ask, was it a surprise to me who those students were? They were the very same students who are continually on task in the classroom and fully focused on the football pitch – therefore, no surprise to me at all.
It could be argued that the community we’re serving through these tasks is basically our own and to serve the wider community we need to look further afield. With this in mind, we are planning a local beach clean-up to extend the reach of our community service.
As individuals we can become quite isolated within our own ‘world’ – this is very much the case for the teenager. For them the world rotates around their needs and their wishes. It is therefore very important that young people have the opportunity to reach out beyond their own needs and help others. This also holds true for them within the home. Having done my share of travelling, I am very aware of how fortunate we are living in our ‘lucky country’, in spite of all the challenges we face living in the 21st century.
I recently attended a documentary about refugees, specifically those migrating from war torn countries in the Middle East, who travel to Indonesia to register as legal refugees hoping to be granted entry into Australia. Often this process takes many months, if it happens at all. Too often, in desperation and sought out by people smugglers, these people pay huge sums of money and board wrecks of boats, that don’t make it to our shores for one reason or another. Those who do make it have only a remote chance of entering Australia legally, yet they are willing to risk it all, including their lives, for the chance at a life that we so easily take for granted.
We are continually reminding our students how fortunate they are, but do they really understand it? This fabulous land, this amazing college!
Kind regards,
Rodney
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