Rise Against Racism

“Our vision is for a school community where each culture, ethnicity and religion are respected and celebrated.”
Eumemmerring College, Victoria

At Eumemmerring College ruMAD? was used as a framework for the student leadership team.

“Our school is really multicultural and there’s a lot of different nationalities… a lot of fights are started within our school because of racism…we thought if we could get that controlled in the school we might be able to see if there’s a problem with it in the community and make a difference there too.”
Student, Eumemmerring College

The students developed the idea of constructing a large amphitheatre in the school. The process itself would “incorporate as much of the community as we could in building it. So we asked if there were any parents who had skills to offer”. The students also set up a competition to design a unity flag representing all the cultures present in the school. The flag will hang alongside the Australian and Indigenous flags in the amphitheatre.

The Eumemmerring students are clear about what they learned. In addition to the amphitheatre project, the group also planned and implemented the Education Foundation’s 2007 Youth Ambassador Conference. The students all cite organisational skills as a huge practical outcome of the projects. They also greatly improved their communication skills by sourcing construction quotes, making hundreds of calls for the conference, presenting a business proposal to Casey council and being interviewed on radio.
“Definitely communication, doing the radio interview was huge for us. We’ve had to make several calls to businesses to get quotes…you have to sound professional and know what you’re talking about…At the start we were nervous but now we’re not. Same with public speaking, we were nervous when we spoke at the website launch but by the time of the Youth Ambassadors Conference we were confident.”
Student, Eumemmerring College

Although none of the project work formed part of their formal assessment, the students are adamant that they’ve been able to apply what they learnt to their school work. When asked to bring in work they were proud of some students bought in work for their ruMAD? projects. The students often felt that what they were doing was seen as extra curricula activity and not considered core-learning experiences of school. Their teacher however tells a slightly different story:
“I do have a lot of teachers coming up to me and saying, Wow! What the student leaders are doing is wonderful, the kids don’t see that side of it yet, but I know there are teachers who are in awe of what these guys have managed to achieve. They give me the credit and I say I didn’t do anything, I was just facilitating and the kids we’re doing it all…Their values are being reinforced through every activity and I think they’ll be better people because of it. After being involved with the Youth Ambassadors Conference, I don’t think any of those students are the same. Whether they realise it or not, they’ve been affected in a very positive way.”
Marina Prassos, Student Leadership Facilitator – Eumemmerring College