Wellbeing - Senior School

EREA NSW Student Leaders Gathering

On Monday 26 February, members of the Student Leadership Team had the opportunity to attend the EREA NSW Student Leaders Gathering which was held at St Pius X College. The event took place over the course of a day and saw prefect representatives from many local and regional Edmund Rice schools come together to discuss, learn, and share ideas.

The event began with a liturgy that involved the spiritual components of leadership, particularly centred around the ways in which we could fulfill our roles in line with the core values of compassion, fairness, and servant leadership. We then heard from the event’s keynote speaker 'Alopi Latukefu, the Director of the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education, who spoke to us about his experiences as a leader in his background of foreign policy, diplomacy, and social justice. The insightful presentation helped show us how we could integrate advocacy into our lives and strive towards making a difference on important contemporary issues.

After a break for some refreshments, which were provided by college justice partners CatholicCare and House of Welcome, we heard from the captains of the attending schools, including our College Captain Michael Sakr, who spoke of their experiences at the National Young Leaders Gathering in Melbourne which focused on students’ voices and agency.

Following this, we formed breakout groups amongst the other student leaders with similar portfolios to discuss ideas for specific initiatives and help foster greater collaboration between the different schools’ leadership teams in the future. We then returned back together as a school group to consolidate what we had gathered before the day concluded.

Overall, we found the event to be an enriching experience. We had the unique opportunity to build stronger bonds with the student leaders of our EREA community and discovered new ideas and ways of thinking that will enhance how we work in our leadership roles going forward. We would like to thank Mr Tatola and Ms Santiago for helping organise this valuable opportunity.

Jeremy Simonetto

Learning and Technology Prefect