YOUNG INJUSTICE WORKSHOP: NSW PARLIAMENT HOUSE

On the first day back of Term 4 ten students from Year 5 and 6 were lucky enough to attend a ‘Youth Justice Day’ at Parliament House, along with seven other schools.

Our first workshop was with a UNICEF worker named Mia who talked about the struggles of children and what UNICEF [United Nations International Children’s Fund] does to help. Her example to us was about a young girl who lives in Timor Leste and how she has to walk 3 hours every day to get water and has to carry 2 litres on a 3km walk. Mia also said how each vaccine to immunise HIV costs 33 cents yet governments can’t supply it but UNICEF helps communities unable to provide it to their citizens by giving the communities the vaccines.

Our Second activity of the day was a talk by a volunteer worker from an organisation working in war torn areas of Sri Lanka called Palmera which helps citizens who’s wealth and businesses were destroyed during the civil war and create small businesses so they can become entrepreneurs by selling things to the local areas. We were given a task to create business ideas using materials that can be found in the local areas. We then shared our ideas and pointed out the flaws in each idea or if they were suitable how they could help the communities make money off it.

Our third activity was about animal rights and what we eat. A passionate speaker named Jordan  talked to us about factory farms and the cruelty involved. We learnt cows will mourn for their children and feel pain the some way we do if they’re young is ripped away from them. Chickens will be crammed into cages half they’re size and will be given hormones to expand in size to the point where they’re legs can’t even sustain they’re body weight. In so called free range eggs they are also crammed in to 10,000 chickens per Hectare giving them hardly any room to roam around.  He also told us that these farms are placed in the middle of nowhere hidden secretly so no eyes can be set on the cruelty given to the animals.  This was powerful stuff!

Our fourth and final workshop was about Australia’s wealth and wellbeing and how unevenly spread our economy is. Our workshop leader Leo used real life facts from the Australian economy to prove his opinions. 43% of Australia’s wealth belongs to 10% of our population categorised A and then J the lowest group has 0.5% of the wealth and none of them have jobs showing how unfair it is. We discussed an idea that could spread out the wealth evenly enough to give everyone jobs and opportunities.

As the day came to an end we were once again gathered in the theatre to be given the concluding speech to the fascinating day. Social justice is about the fair distribution of wealth and the opportunities for all members of society so everyone can strive to achieve the best of their abilities. We left the day well informed and aware of what problems and social justice issues are occurring in the world around us.

By Max Langford and Luca Fotea (6C)