Year 10

‘Building Bridges' is an experiential interfaith program offered to Year 10 students from different religious schools, to promote mutual understanding, respect and ethical behaviour across our cultural and religious diversities and to develop competent global leaders for the 21st century. The program consisted of five, two hour sessions over six months, with schools attending from across Melbourne, such as King David (Jewish), Nazareth (Catholic), Killester (Catholic), Mt Hira (Turkish Islamic) and our College.

Each session began with an introduction to the school, its heritage, values, beliefs and daily customs; we also got a quick tour of the campus, led by the students. We would then play an ‘icebreaker’ game and then dinner time, Pizza!  After dinner, we split off into all girl and all boy groups of around 10 students per group, to discuss different aspects of our religion, its customs and beliefs. We all learnt a lot about each other’s religions, and the values and ideologies they follow. These discussions cleared up any misconceptions or ideas that any students may have had about a certain religion. 

In August, we all gathered at Monash Gardens Aged Care Facility for a creative day. We spent the day with the residents taking part in activities and played bingo and trivia. We sanded and painted old picture frames and cut out snowflakes for their Winter Wonderland Day, to celebrate the end of winter! We also played games such as carpet bowling, balloon toss, bingo and trivia. We found that the residents were VERY competitive, resulting in the trivia team being annihilated by the residents with an impressive score of 20 : 11. Our students had great fun calling out the lucky numbers in bingo, such as legs eleven (11) and tickle me (63). An amazing day!

The Presentation Night on 27 August was our final gathering as the 2019 Building Bridges cohort. It included speeches from students and facilitators talking about their experience throughout the program and students from Swinburne University talking about their expedition to the Parliament of the World's Religions in Canada. The night concluded with a representative from each school receiving certificates on behalf of the students who participated in the 'Building Bridges' program. 

Overall, the students who participated in the 'Building Bridges' program will not forget the amazing experience we had, not only learning about different religions, but making friends and growing together. We hope that future Year 10s from the College and the other participating schools take up this opportunity as it is thoroughly rewarding and super fun!

Thank you to Ms Fraser and Mr Nash for organising our expeditions and driving us to each session. 

Shawnée Balogh

Year 10