The hills are alive...with Monbulk College and Schools First - 10/04/10

Stuart Osbourne writes:

On a wintry Saturday morning, I headed out to Monbulk in the hills outside of Melbourne with the Head of Schools First, Jodi Cryan to meet some of the outstanding students at Monbulk College – one of our 2009 Impact Award winning schools.

We were delighted to be joined out at the school by a news crew from Channel 7 who filmed a story about the school and their amazing community partnership with Swinburne University and Emergency Services Training (EST) – Swinburne University.

The news segment aired on Channel 7 in Melbourne that night and showcased how the program provides children from the school with leadership skills, fire awareness and certification as fire fighters.

Jodi and I were thrilled to meet the students, as well as teacher Loretta Goldmsith, representatives of the CFA, Swinburne University and the local LLEN. We were also amazed to see the trailer that the school has purchased with some of the $50,000 they were awarded for their Schools Fist award. This trailer - complete with Schools First, ACER, FYA and NAB logos – allows the program to be portable and taken to other schools within the area without being entirely reliant on CFA resources and volunteers.

The need for this trailer was identified last year by the school following the Black Saturday fires. While the program has been running since 2005, last year the program started exceptionally late due to all the resources that were required to fight the fires and help with the recovery efforts.

One of the ambitions of the school and their community partner when they put in their application last year was to help take the program to at least three other schools in the area. Already, they have five schools registered to take up the program this year.

While it was a cold and drizzly morning up in Monbulk, it was inspiring to see young people out training on the last Saturday morning of their school holidays – and loving it! The passion and commitment of everyone involved in helping to take inspire and educate the young people in the area was clearly evident.

Despite the early start for everyone involved, it was a great way to start the weekend and I was very happy to see the school get some positive publicity on the news that night for their fantastic work.

On a final note - I've got a good local coffee tip for you. If you are ever on the hill, give Friends on the Hill a try for some great local coffee!