Grammar Gazette- Issue 1, 2010

COMMUNITY

Brooke Gillott (Senior 2009): “Having been on the French trip in 2007 there was never a question for me, of going back to Angoulême. It was just a question of WHEN. My friends often ask me if I regret not going to Schoolies week and my answer is always the same: absolutely not. The French trip changed my life in a way I cannot begin to describe.”

2008 French Study Tour in Angoulême

However, the impact of a student visit to Brisbane from Lycée Saint Paul, the recognised personal connection that exists between the two Schools and the relationships developed across the wider Brisbane Girls Grammar families means that we are now beginning to see some of the same happening in Brisbane: familiar faces in a surprising context, unexpected meetings in the city mall with past students of Lycée Saint Paul now living and studying in Brisbane. But that’s another story for another day.

Nicole Jones (Senior, 2009): “When I was recently in Angoulême I found I knew about thirty students at Lycée Saint Paul through the Affiliate School Programme. Wandering the streets of Angoulême I usually ran into someone I knew from the many years of student visits to Brisbane Girls Grammar School. Sometimes they were people I hadn’t seen for two or three years but the friendship was still there.”

The Second Chance committee is a co-curricular community service activity run by senior students under the direction of Ms Hills. We aim to raise funds and awareness for the problem of young women’s homelessness, and any funds we raise are given to the Second Chance Programme Fundraising Group Inc which supports homeless women here in Brisbane. A COMMUNITY PROJECT Maddison Bates-Willis Year 12 Student

We have already had two workshops under the guidance of Othila’s manager, Ms Jill McKay, community artist, Ms Denise Bolland and Ms Hills. First, we met at Brisbane Girls Grammar and got to know a young woman affected by homelessness. At our second workshop, at the Othila’s office, we started planning our artwork with three more of the young homeless women. In our workshops we have been discovering the challenges we all face. Some of these challenges have been confronting and hard to imagine, and others are very familiar indeed. Regardless of the varying degrees of challenges we all face, we have come to realise through sharing our stories that we aren’t alone in our experience. Feeling overwhelmed, fearful, stressed or confronted we understand that challenge is relative, and necessary to personal growth and resilience.The opportunity to work with these young women and share experiences has been humbling and has reminded us of how lucky we are, but it has also shown

This year, we are pioneering a new peer education project with Othila’s, a local community based organisation working with young women who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Currently, ten Brisbane Girls Grammar students from Years 11 and 12 are creating connections within the community by making a quilted artwork with four women from Othila’s. The intention of the project is to improve links between fundraising and active involvement in the community. It gives us practical hands-on experience and enables us to develop our confidence and motivation in regard to community service, encouraging us to discuss and develop our own initiatives with a futures perspective in mind. The project also aims to dispel any misinformation and stigma attached to homelessness as well as privilege. By working directly with homeless women and simply sharing our experiences as young women in contemporary society, we are focusing on commonalities rather than differences.

us how important it is to be willing and able to face challenges, and to embrace them positively as a means of gaining knowledge and life experience. With one more workshop to go, and an exhibition planned to display our artwork in Term II, the challenge for me at the moment is to complete my square of the quilt on time! We are grateful to the School for allowing us to take part in this truly enriching experience.

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grammar gazette AUTUMN 2010