Catholic Identity & Mission News
Greetings from Japan! I am very fortunate to be participating in the College’s Japan Study Tour this year. I am travelling with 11 amazing students and 2 wonderful colleagues, and we have been having a great, and busy time! Japan is an incredible country, and it is such a privilege to be able to experience another country’s people, sites and culture. Our students, not just those I am travelling with, are always encouraged to look beyond their own experiences of life and learn from how others live too. Our Youth Ministry and Social Justice students have been doing just that this term when they have used their time and talents to support those who have been experiencing hardships through three projects: our Rosies Van visits, our ongoing Chelsea Project and our recent ‘Winter Night[s] in’ on each campus.
Our involvement with Rosies was initiated by teacher, Mr Tishan Lokuge, and has been well supported by former staff member Ms Clarisse Campos who is now a coordinator there. As the Rosies’ website explains: Rosies has a ministry of being "Friends On The Street." Each Wednesday and Friday night a team of up to twelve volunteers operate a coffee van offering friendship and hospitality through the simple gesture of a free hot or cold drink.
Rosies volunteers are not social workers and we are not an accommodation agency. We provide a comfortable and safe environment on Flinders Street, in which to belong, especially for those who appear to be homeless or lonely. Rosies is open to all who seek a friendly community.
Rosies volunteers develop friendships by having a listening ear. One of the many frustrations for the homeless is not only finding food and shelter, but also finding someone to listen to their story and to be their "Friend On The Street".
St Peter’s students and staff have been rostered onto some recent Wednesday nights to go and be ‘friends on the street’ to Rosies clients in the Melbourne CBD. Students have described it as a powerful and enriching experience and have enjoyed delivering cookies and treats made by our Vocational Major students while enjoying conversations with the ‘streeties’. Soon, they’ll also be delivering handwritten notes of encouragement and solidarity that were written by our students on our recent ‘Winter Night In’ events on each campus. These events were facilitated by the Social Justice Leaders, Ms Cathy Michael and Ms Melanie Bell, and provided the opportunity for students to gather and learn more about the work of the St Vincent de Paul society in supporting those experiencing homelessness. They also shared a light meal and participated in activities throughout the evening that endeavoured to educate and give them some experience of how homelessness affects people’s day to day lives.
We understand that there are also those within our own community who know first-hand, the difficulties in making ends meet at times. It was through that experience that one of our students proposed an initiative we now call ‘The Chelsea Project’. Each fortnight, a roster of students creates soups and sweet treats to be distributed via the Vinnies Food Vans operating out of Berwick. I know I have written of this project before but as I travel and think of the busy term we have just experienced, it is these three initiatives that have come to mind – our students earnestly volunteering to learn more and to give more to those around them. We want these projects to grow and for all our students to experience the truth that ‘it is in giving that we receive’.
In Japan, we are experiencing the generosity of our hosts and the anonymity of being tourists. It’s different (naturally) to being at home and in our comfort zones! I think that many of the teachings of Jesus urge us to move from our comfort zones, and to ‘stay awake’. As a Catholic school, these various opportunities, as different as they are, aim to move us towards humbly fulfilling our God-given potential and to be the ‘reason for hope’ in our world. I thank all the staff and students in our College who are living witnesses to that hope and wish all a happy and restful term break.
Ms Fiona McKenna
Deputy Principal – Catholic Identity & Mission