There are many exciting events taking place in the coming weeks for the Identity Team to share with our St Joseph’s College community. We are preparing to celebrate our Touchstone of Inclusive Community during Diversity Week via our online Assembly to launch Diversity Week with a focus on language and inclusivity. We have an understanding that we value difference and as a community, we are respectful of each other. Each of us is asked to not just tolerate, but to try to understand each other, today and every day. This touchstone aims to promote acceptance, and foster right relationships, with an overall commitment to the common good.

Students are encouraged to engage in the Service Learning opportunity to earn three service learning hours and three House points by supporting this year’s Winter Sleep Out by sleeping rough at home, to raise money for local people experiencing homelessness due to the effects of family violence. Please add a few extra items to your shopping list to support homerooms to act by bringing in donations of toiletries. Go through your wardrobes this weekend and cupboards to share some warm blankets and clothing which will also be gratefully received at the reception crates at Edmund Rice and Westcourt Campuses as part of the Winter Appeal. Registration link: 2022 Winter Sleepout. All donations can be done via the SJC Shop.

Our Year 10 students will be given a deeper perspective into the issue of homelessness and how they can respond when they participate in their Year 10 Renewal – Wellbeing Days on Monday 1 and Tuesday 2 August. Our annual Time and Space Mother/Carer/Mentor and Year 7 Son Event will take place on Tuesday 2 August. See flyer for registration details.

NAIDOC Week

NAIDOC week aims to celebrate and recognise the rich cultural history of First Nations Peoples that makes Australia unique. The theme for this year is "Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up!" This has been described as being a call for action to bring about "systemic change and keep rallying around our mob, our Elders, our communities." As part of our St Joseph’s Reconciliation Action Plan we are always looking for solid student support in this area. We invite students who would like to be someone who gets up, stands up and shows up in helping with future activities aimed to promote and create change for First Nations Peoples, to email our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Coordinator Ben McDowell. Lowell Hunter, known as Salty One and Lowey to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait students was awarded the 2022 creative talent award. He delivers cultural strengthening programs in schools and facilitates interactive sand art and culture workshops with students on the beach. He has been connecting to country and culture with our students over the past two years and we congratulate him.

Lake Mungo Immersion

Some of you may be aware that during the concluding week of the last term a group of 21 St Joseph’s students accompanied by two teachers Mr Crook and Ms Willard took part in our first College Immersion since 2019. Ranging from Years 10 to 11 and with the help of the Red Earth organisation we were given the pristine privilege of not only visiting one of Australia’s few National parks, Lake Mungo, but having the opportunity of traversing the lake itself. Apart from rolling down the sand dunes we participated in other significant activities such as how to read the history of the lake just by judging the age of the different sand layers. It was here we linked up with Red Earth employees Shaz and Chip. They helped our St Joseph’s team to fully immerse themselves within the Indigenous Australian culture whether it be through partaking in ancient rituals on country or simply listening to the many stories and teachings of the elders and traditional owners. Apart from the kindly gifted clap sticks the boys also took home a deeper understanding of the truths of our nation’s past. As Aunt Vicky constantly remarked, the best way to truly understand a story isn’t by listening to other stories such as this one, but by seeing the story with your own eyes.

Elijah, Year 11 Touchstone Leader

Refugee Week 2022

In the last week of Term 2, the College celebrated World Refugee week.

The theme for Refugee week this year was healing. As a result of the global pandemic, Australia and the rest of the world have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hit the reset button on how we behave towards one another. The importance of human connections has been underscored by the pandemic and such lessons can help us in so many ways.  Mainstream and refugee communities alike can draw upon shared hardship to heal wounds, learn from each other, and to move forward. Healing can occur through storytelling, through community, and also through realisation of our intrinsic interconnectedness as individuals.  The common theme is a reminder of our role as individuals and as a wider St Joseph’s community to engage with acts of healing and storytelling in an attempt to work towards rejuvenation. 2022 cannot just ‘be another year’. Let it be a year that allows us to heal together and emerge as a more fulfilled and connected society.

It reminds us that during these last few years of the pandemic, we all might have felt lonely and isolated at times, and we know how difficult it can be. As a community during Refugee week, we sought to learn and understand how these feelings of isolation have been amplified from a refugee’s perspective. In order to heal, we know the power of inclusion vs. exclusion, integration rather than segregation and more importantly, feel empowered to help someone feel less alone. It means recognising and valuing how much refugees can contribute to our community.

This ties into this year’s Catholic Identity theme where, ‘Anything is possible with God’ (Luke 18:27) Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’ Our faith tradition calls us to people of hope and faith. Just as Edmund Rice drew of his faith during the many trials and challenges of his life, it wasn’t until he turned 40 did he open his first school. Many refugees and asylum seekers of various faith traditions share the common belief of the Golden Rule that we should ‘treat one another as we’d like to be treated.’ They wait in faith and hope for the possibility that they will be welcomed and find a new safe haven for their families to heal and begin a new life. As a College, students and staff participated in events and learning activities inside and outside of classrooms to recognise the enormous positive contribution people with refugee backgrounds and people seeking asylum contribute to our society.

After delaying it for a year, we were finally able to host a film night in partnership with CRAG Combined Refugee Action Group of Geelong. It was a great turn out from our community with many staff, students, families and friends of our St Joseph’s Community attending a screening of ‘Scattered People’. All ticket sales, raffle tickets and merchandise sold on the evening went directly to CRAG and the total amount raised on the night was $1,752.05. CRAG advocates for refugee policies in Australia that are informed by the UN Refugee Convention and Protocol, and that are developed in partnership with our regional neighbours, to ensure the safety of vulnerable people seeking asylum. For more information please visit - http://craggeelong.com/ Another event that took place was the Circle of Solidarity in the Quad. Here we stood together to publicly recognise and show our support for people seeking asylum and express hope for a united future. Many thanks to the many staff and students who joined in during the lunchtime event recognising that indeed, Refugees are welcome here.

Rachel Ivey Refugee Coordinator

Identity Artwork Westcourt

Thanks to the grant we received from our Inter Cultural Understanding Partnership with ‘Together for Humanity’ and the JMCA, we are planning a creative response to the Golden Rule, a theme we have been exploring over the past two years. The Golden Ruletreat others as you would like to be treated – is at the heart of all religious traditions. The Golden Rule poster displays this principle of reciprocity in the sacred texts and symbols of thirteen different religions, including Aboriginal spirituality. In alignment with our commitment to Pope Francis’ Laudato Si goals, we aim to commission the artist Jane Perkins to create an upcycled artwork to encapsulate an inspired image representative of this theme, our faith and identity. Westcourt students attended a workshop with Jane on Wednesday 22 June, where she shared her creative process, and inspired the students and staff with a presentation of her works. Westcourt students are encouraged to start collecting plastic pieces with sentiment and hand them into the collection container at reception, to be sent back to Jane to incorporate into the artwork. Students and staff will collaborate on the final design to capture the theme. To find out more about Jane’s creations, Jane has a website here: https://janeperkins.co.uk