School: Atherton State High School (QLD)
Partner: Atherton Lions Club
Student: Brooke Snow, Year 12
Brooke‘s idea is to partner with the Atherton Lions Club and others in order introduce as many students as possible to local community organisations in the area. She has envisaged a program which she will call Community Connect. Her plan is to assign students from each year level in the school to a community group. Her hope is that they will not only attend regular meetings and recognise the inspiring work of the members, but also become active members themselves.
She wants to break down the barriers between youth and the wider community, by encouraging students to become actively involved in positive community projects. Brooke feels that this is very important to the education of all young people because teaching is not just numbers and letters.
The benefits for the students will be in their positive contribution to the community, a deeper understanding of the organisations and a greater involvement in the community. She hopes that the generation gap will be lessened as students develop relationships with the older members of these community groups.
The Lions Club will benefit by seeing the potential of the local youth who will introduce fresh ideas, new enthusiasm and new ideas. The Club would also benefit from having students increase their membership, help out at working bees or work with the elderly by introducing them to technology. The activities she has planned for Community Connect are aimed to encourage the involvement of as many students as possible. The first activity is the launch of the program where students will be assigned an organisation. Once the students have a relationship with an organisation they will attend meetings, functions and fundraisers to be able to fully appreciate what is involved.
Brooke’s planning so far incorporates initial discussions with the school and the Lions Club, a meeting to discuss vision and direction, the launch, further meetings with students and assigning them to the different organisations, students will then attend regular meetings of each organisation, gaining feedback and then an end of year presentation.
