COMMUNITY AND SERVICE
The Giving Tree: Service Club in the Junior School
The idea that there are people in our community in need is nurtured from a young age in the Scotch Junior School. Each fortnight, a new club, 'The Giving Tree' meets to investigate ways of sharing and caring for our planet person-to-person and community-to-community in our world. This year, the group has gathered school shoes for an orphanage in Bali and sports shoes to send to an indigenous school in the Kimberly. During the winter months a collection of warm clothes and bedding was donated to the homeless of Perth. The group also acts to care for the environment - looking at our use and disposal of plastic.
Starting children on the journey of life-long awareness of others in need and motivation to act is an important teaching goal. The mission to encourage giving by children in Western Australia was given a boost through the creation of a web site supported by the Governor, Mr Malcolm McCusker, Mrs Tonya McCusker and the McCusker Charitable Foundation. The link to the 'Kids Who Give' web site is http://www.kidswhogivewa.com.au.
Scotch and Presbyterian Ladies' College Tanzania CEFPI Link
In the last edition of The Thistle, Dr O'Connell wrote about the CEFPI (Council of Educational Facility Planners International) connection with the work that Scotch and PLC have been doing in Matipwili village over the past four expeditions to Tanzania. The background to the recent trip by a group of architects and teachers to Matipwili, as well as an outline of the process followed while working in the village can be viewed on the following Youtube clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFiUApqzOpk&feature=em-share_video_user.
There is a wonderful opportunity for the Scotch and PLC communities to add substantially to the teaching and learning facilities in an African village where currently only basic structures exist. Anyone interested in contributing towards the Matipwili Project, as the design and build becomes a reality, can contact Mr Bill Cordner wjcordner@scotch.wa.edu.au.
Re-establishing Contact with Aceh
This week I attended the screening of Hafalan Shalat Delisa along with a large group of Year 8 boys from the Indonesian language classes. Students learning Indonesian from other Perth schools also attended. The film was set in Lhoknga in Aceh province of Indonesia. It has special significance to Scotch College. Shortly after the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, the Rev Chas Lewis and then Head of Junior School, Greg Stowe, visited Lhoknga, the community that perhaps suffered the most in the disaster. Shortly after their visit, Scotch hosted a visit of three boys and a teacher Putri Albaniah from Lhokgna. Following the recent screening, contact has once again been established with Putri with the view to establishing links between classes in the respective schools. The community of Lhoknga has not forgotten the support Scotch offered at a time of great need and it will be good to continue the partnership at some level with a generation of students perhaps too young to remember the turmoil in 2004.
Service to Our Local Community
We have a lot of boys who request that their patrol hours served with local Surf Clubs are logged on our Community and Service database. We are happy to do this indeed, we encourage boys to request the logging of all genuine service performed outside school. Providing it can be verified, it is entirely appropriate to acknowledge service beyond school. After all, we want to prepare boys for life and encouraging service in the broader community promotes a level of engagement that will be lasting. Surf Clubs provide great service to our community and boys who take part should be applauded. There is a nice link here for our boys who also take part in Disabled Surfing (DSA) events, enabling less able members of our community to experience the beach environment. Scotch in Swanbourne, the beach and service - a wonderful mix! The DSA website is http://disabledsurfers.org/wa/perth-branch/.
