The Kolbe Students Making a Difference
From 7.30am on Friday morning to 7.30am Saturday morning last week, a group of 31 Year 11 students went without food in order to understand a little of what people living in poverty are going through by participating in one of Caritas’ Fundraising projects, Fast for Faith. I spoke to Melissa James from TEPH earlier this week, and she reflects:

‘We learned about how our Patrons worked towards helping people in poverty, and also produced a slide show to share what we have learned through these experiences with our House members, at a later date. Mother Teresa lived in poverty herself, she lived with the poorest of the poor, and did what she could to restore their dignity.

Taking part in this event, you feel like you ARE helping, not only through raising money for the poor, but by encouraging others to also help combat poverty, to try to BE more like your patron. We can all DO something, even by giving up some of our pocket money.’

In addition to Melissa James, the students who participated in Fast for Faith were: Benjamin Baker, Emma Brazier, Chad Brewerton, Amy Cheang, Hanna Clausen, Courtney Cluning, Joshua Hanson, Travis Hasson, Emily Hatton, Emma Hicks, Jamie Hughson, Melissa James, Jennifer Kelly, Maddison Kelly, Jessica Kimberley, Cory Mackay, Courtney Maxwell, Luke McCready, Catherine Muller, Melissa O’Connor, Elyse O’Dea, Megan O’Driscoll, Katrice Outram, Eileen Pearce, Hadrienne Saunders, Mitchell Smith, Melissa Thorburn, Stephanie Thorpe, Craig Moody, Caleb Hastie, and Freedom Hicks.

I would like to encourage our community to make further donations to students who took part in Fast for Faith. Others can choose to have a more direct effect by not only raising funds, but travelling to areas stricken with poverty to work with villagers to make a difference. Year 11 student Laura Dent spoke at our last assembly about her self-motivated plan to work at Shukrani College, Mbeya in south-western Tanzania, for two months in her school holidays. Laura is presently raising funds to travel to the school where she plans to purchase books and stationery for the school, assist in setting up the library by cataloguing and labelling books, and to tutor students in English and computing. We wish Laura all the best in her quest to improve conditions for a community in Tanzania through improved educational outcomes.