Student Voice

Victorian Young Leaders: Global Youth Forum and Feedback Session by Asher Stone, Year 9

Students at Pakenham Secondary College were invited to participate in the Global Youth Leadership Forum, organised and conducted by the Asia Education Foundation which is part of the University of Melbourne. 

There were over 176 participants logged into the meeting, and the students were not only from schools in Victoria, but also from India, Malaysia and Indonesia. 

During the day we had many guest speakers, mostly who were young leaders and they shared with us a small project or small change that they had initiated that ended up having a major impact in a given area. This was so inspiring. We were also able to engage with other students online.

One of the highlights of the Forum were the group tasks: "Create a Prototype". We were very excited about this and full of potential ideas. My group's first plan was to use abandoned buildings and current sky-rise apartments and create plant nurseries on each floor and roof top gardens on each of the roofs to help our environment. We also worked on an educational focused prototype titled "The Teen to Jail Pipeline and how it is caused by systemic racism". Our aim was to create a box that would be sent out to schools and community centres with pamphlets - the aim to not only provide publications that highlight the inappropriateness of racism but also provide empowering information for individuals to break the cycle of racism (for full details of our plan, please click on the link below). Our prototype was very well received, with comments such as "We can't beat that" and "This needs to be put into production now and should not be left as a prototype."

On Monday, 5th December the forum participants from our College visited the University of Melbourne for a Feedback Session. We were put into break out groups and asked to discuss a series of questions such as 'Taking Action, what world do I want to be a part of? What can I do?' and many others. We were also able to tour the facilities of Melbourne University, before reconvening to discuss ideas for future forums. The day was a great success, with every single one of us inspired and changed by the experience.

If you would like to read Asher's full report please click here.

Duke of Edinburgh Evergreen Retirement Village Visit

Our Year 9 Duke of Edinburgh Award students recently visited the Evergreen Retirement Village to provide and participate in Christmas Craft Activities with the elderly residents. 

This visit gave the students a 'taste' of volunteering and interacting with the local community in preparation for their 'Voluntary Service' component of the Duke of Edinburgh Award.

The students and residents had a wonderful time interacting and are looking forward to 2023 and more visits!