When a girl is educated everything changes!
This is the motto inspiring our Year 9 Psychology students to try and make a difference for girls living in poverty-stricken countries. Friday night (14th November) approximately 80 of the school's girls from Year 7 through to Year 11 packed their sleeping bags for a sleepover.
Far from your typical gossip-fest, movie-watching, stay up until dawn sleepovers usually associated with teenage girls, the Ulladulla High School students were out to raise awareness for the #GetDeep campaign.
The Year 9 Psychology class, encouraged by their teacher, Melanie Clare, presented an initiative for raising money to help educate girls in poverty stricken countries. It is an all-girls class which is very unique at Ulladulla High and we have been studying mindfulness and happiness and part of this was random acts of kindness. This lead to conversations of us being grateful for where we live and what we have. Then we decided to help those less fortunate and this campaign is what we came up with.
The class pitched their ideas and researched different foundations and decided to raise awareness by holding the sleepover in the school's MPC. The foundation we chose to support is One Girl.org which particularly focuses on girls in Sierra Leone, Africa. We called our particular fundraiser #GetDeep because in the planning stages we decided that we had to get right into it,
i.e. #GetDeep, for this fundraiser to work.
The Psychology class worked tirelessly planning games and activities, as well as providing education during the night about the challenges girls throughout the world have when trying to access basic education. We watched stories from the Girl Rising DVD, we had trivia on challenges for girls throughout the world and we learnt of the health perils in not having access to fresh water.
To make the night authentic, we provided the girls with only a bowl of boiled rice for dinner, along with a cup of dirty water (well it was clean water with black food colouring to give the impression of it being dirty).
We played blind-folded makeup, had a fashion parade with outfits made from newspapers, had a talent quest and a simulation game about poverty. We had so much fun.
These girls have been amazing and inspirational in their organisation and running of this night. I am very proud of them and proud to be their teacher.
In the lead-up to the event former surfer and model, turned television presenter and inspirational author, Laura Andon, donated 100 of her books, The Ride of Life, to be given to each girl who was part of the campaign.
The Ride of Life is an empowering and inspirational learn to surf book. Laura uses surfing as a metaphor and her book encourages people to stand up for themselves, both in and out of the water, helping to turn dreams into reality.
Many local businesses supported us in this campaign.
We would like to thank the following businesses for their generous donations: Harvest Bar Milton, Coles, Whims, Pippis, Ulladulla Discount Fabrics, Arcadia Twin Cinemas, Funland, Sportscene and Bawley Point Newsagency. Ulladulla High School thanks all these businesses and Laura for their generous spirit.
The big plan is to eventually travel to a third world country to volunteer to help improve the educational opportunities of girls in these countries. Planning will begin next year.
For more information visit www.onegirl.org.au/
Mel Clare, Psychology Teacher