English and Humanities

Project Compassion Guest Speaker

This year the Year 9 students are taking the lead in driving Killester College’s Project Compassion efforts. Before they are set off to begin their projects, Megan Bourke from Caritas came in to speak to all students in two sessions. She began by surprising the girls with some devastating statistics. 736 billion people in the world live off less than US $1.90 and 844 million people do not have access to safe and clean water near them. For many of the students, these and other statistics shone a light on the efforts made by Project Compassion. Megan introduced the students to a woman called Shirley, an indigenous woman from the Philippines. Due to being racially persecuted by her community and the illness of her husband, she is the sole breadwinner in her family. Due to the donations from Project Compassion, she has been trained to be a health worker. The flow-on effect of this is empowering other women and men in her community to be trained as well. Shirley has also become a local chieftain in her community due to her displays of resilience, care and hard work. This session gave the girls just a snapshot into the work of Project Compassion and how their fundraising efforts can support the most vulnerable in society. In this year of justice, the Lenten season is a particularly key time to consider the lives of those less fortunate than ours and initiate improving their lives for the better. We wish the students well as they begin their fundraising campaign.

For more information on Caritas’ Project Compassion, go to https://lent.caritas.org.au/.

Brigid Garofalo

RE Learning Area Leader