Health & Wellbeing News

Promoting Positive Wellbeing and Resilience  

On Tuesday 29th November our Year 9’s were treated to a special event with youth motivational guest speaker, Eric Agyeman. Eric has an inspiring story about his school experiences as a child migrant, first in New Zealand and then Australia.  

Eric captivated our year 9’s recounting his experiences of being racially bullied in primary and high school and how it deeply affected his identity and wellbeing. This led to Eric missing many days of school and to experience anger and other emotions that he didn’t know how to deal with. Eric went on to dabble in joining a gang before turning his life around. It did help that Eric had a booming voice and a great sense of style! 

Eric’s presentation was focussed on building resilience. Eric has since published 4 best-selling books and received the African Australian Community Impact award in 2014. Eric had a timely message about respect for other people, especially respect towards those in our own family. Eric spoke about how important words are when we speak to others, and one of his main messages is “Words can kill but words can also HEAL”.  

Thank you to our year 9 cohort who displayed excellent listening skills and respectful behaviour. Our students were very interested in Eric’s story, his fall from grace and how he overcame the negativity and ill fortune to become the man he is today. Many students were keen to have their photo taken with Eric at the end of the session. Also thankyou to Mr Hewson, Ms Dear, Mr Harber, Mr Jenner, and Karina, Melissa and Nick from the wellbeing team for their participation. 

Thankyou to Morrison Kleeman Estate Agents for providing Greensborough College with this opportunity to have Eric speak at our school. 

For more information, please see link to Eric’s website. Eric Agyeman – Youth Mentor & Speaker 

https://www.morrisonkleeman.com.au/ 

Melissa Lenten, 

Secondary School Nurse,

Wellbeing Team