VCAL

In Term 3, the Year 11 VCAL class explored the topic of refugees and had the opportunity to visit the Brigidine Asylum Seeker Centre in Albert Park. On the day, we listened to refugees explain the story of their lives which was so inspiring, emotional and interesting. We gained a strong insight into how refugees live and the struggles they face in their day-to-day lives. On another day, we had a presentation from a gentleman named Damien who worked in a refugee camp in Kenya. He told us about the living conditions and how some families had been there for generations. 

The presentations we attended, gave our class the inspiration and dedication to create a story book based on refugees and their struggles. The main idea we used to  write the book was from a poem that was written by an Australian woman who worked in a refugee camp in Nauru. The poem is about a young couple and what they had to go through to get from Sudan to Melbourne safely. The poem is called Little Boy and is written from the point of view of the mother speaking to her unborn son.

Our book is called The Journey and is about the son when he is grown up.  The boy, named Amal, faces a challenge based on his parents' background. We decided on the name Amal because of its meaning which is 'hope' in Arabic. We thought this was a fitting name for the main character as the mother in the poem never gave up hope, despite the challenges she faced.

On Thursday 7 November we began our book tour. Our first stop was St Brigid’s Primary School in Mordialloc where we read our book to three Year 5/6 classes. The classes were all very engaged and interested in our presentation and curious about the process of making the book and the story behind it. We involved the classes by asking them questions such as “Where is your family from?” where we received a variety of answers. Overall, our visit was a great success and the classes really enjoyed our presentation. It was a great starting point in sharing our story with others and we look forward to presenting it to other schools in the future. 

Ebony O’Neill and

Eliza van den Broek

Year 11