On Thursday 13 August, five of our Stage 3 boys (Nilanka Abbey-6C, Angus Bourne-5L, Harry O’Connor-5E, Aditya Apana-5L and Jett Leong-5E) were involved in the IPSHA Social Action Expo at The Kings’ School.

The Social Action Expo is a biannual event where various service organisations and students are able to share the action they take to help others. The boys listened to talks from Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Ozharvest and Kids Give-Inspired by School Aid.

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

“I learnt a lot about Diabetes, what it is, what it is like to live with it and how if you have diabetes you need insulin injections to help process the sugar in your body and turn it into energy. I also learnt that Type 1 Diabetes is an auto-immune disease that simply develops over time and Type 2 Diabetes is caused by over-eating, not enough exercise and bad lifestyle habits.

The people at JDRF are working hard to find a cure to Type 1 diabetes and this can only be done by raising funds and continuing medical research. Their slogan is “Type None Diabetes”. Harry

Ozharvest

“When the people from Ozharvest spoke they shared a number of mind-blowing statistics about how much food we waste in Australia every year. Did you know that in Australia every year 8 to 10 billion dollars worth of food is wasted?

The aim of Ozharvest is to collect left over food from restaurants, food outlets and corporate kitchens and deliver it directly to over 680 charities that feed the disadvantaged and homeless.

The remarkable thing is that over 14 million Australians are obese and over 2 million people in Australia are going hungry each and every day.

My advice to all of us at Newington is to not waste our food. We hope to devise a plan to reduce food waste in our school.” Aditya

Kids Give – Inspired by School Aid

“School Aid have raised millions of dollars for people in need across Australia and have started a new crowd funding initiative called Kids Give where kids make up their own projects to raise funds and awareness for various charities that they have a passion about.

Some of the projects saw people making second hand book shops, bake sales, car washes and many other things. They do this through school KAT teams (Kids Advisory Team) who work together to come up with an idea that best supports those in need.

I look forward to starting a KAT team at school.” Angus

Inspired by Action

“I was lucky enough to get the chance to represent Newington at the Social Action Expo through some action I have taken on my own. After visiting Canberra earlier this year I noticed that there was no Aboriginal Flag in the Federal Senate so I sent a letter to our local member of parliament, Mr Paul Fletcher, asking him why there was no flag. He responded to me saying he did not know why there was no flag and that he would find out why there was not one by asking the President of the Senate. After Mr Fletcher asked the President of the Senate, we were lucky enough to have him come to school and share his discussions with us. We are now awaiting his response and hopefully we will see an Aboriginal Flag in the Senate sooner rather than later.

“I really enjoyed presenting to other schools about personal action I have taken and look forward to doing it again in the upcoming PYP Exhibition.” Nilanka

The Day in General

“Being able to go to the Social Action Expo was an eye-opening experience because I learned that there are so many people who are taking action for those who really need it.

I look forward to learning more about what action is and sharing that with others at our school. The last words on the day from one of the speakers was “From little things, big things grow”. These are words from an Australian song by Paul Kelly but it makes me realise that we can make a real change if we put our minds to it. To do this we have to start small and grow things by woking together.” Jett

We look forward to seeing the boys who were part of the Social Action Expo sharing what they learned with the Newington Lindfield community so we can all be actively involved in Service Learning Programs that support those in need.

Jackson English – Year 6 Teacher