Pride Flag-raising 

On Wednesday 29th of November, Woodmans Hill hosted a large group of community guests to celebrate our Pride Group Flag Raising Ceremony. It was an incredible event which highlighted our focus on diversity and inclusion and strengthened our links to and partnerships with community organizations. 

At Woodmans Hill, we have two Pride Groups, the first is a social group that meets every week and provides a safe space for our LGTBQIA+ students and allies and the second is or Pride advocacy group which aims to influence and make changes within our school community to make Woodmans a safer and more inclusive space. Our Pride advocacy group met earlier this year with their amazing leader Ashton Turale and came up with the goal of installing a Pride flagpole as a symbol of diversity and inclusion for all staff and students. 

They worked closely with our Y Ballarat Diversity and Inclusion Project worker AJ Barwell-Chung and learned about Raising Rainbows a Chill Out initiative that fundraises to support groups to fund Pride flagpoles. Fast forward a few months and here we are! 

We would like to thank the following people who made this possible: 

• Lauren Matthews from Raising Rainbows
• Matt Clarke from Chill Out
• Sez Lothian from City of Ballarat
• AJ Barwell-Chung from the Y Ballarat

In addition, thank you to those community members who attended on the day from Y Ballarat, Ballarat Community Health and Q-Hub!