As a part of the Global Gathering Unit, MLMC’s Senior VCAL students have been learning about refugees and the difficulties they often face in a new country.
The Unit encourages inter-cultural contact between students in the Melbourne’s eastern region and the practical component involved a number of activities with the aim of exposing them to Australian culture. Accordingly, during the past two weeks the VCAL class visited St Peter Julian Eymard (SPJ) in Mooroolbark to help promote and celebrate the diverse culture that surrounds us every day.
MLMC students worked with a range of children from Grades 1- 4 who had come from Myanmar over the past years. Some SPJ students had confronting stories and histories to share of their time in refugee camps and in their transition to a new country.
The VCAL students were able to spend time and connect with these students through a series of Australian inspired activities. Each group selected a theme to cover with their primary school charges, which included looking at and consuming local foods. Some of these were then made into animal bugs. The big hit was most certainly fairy bread with, yes you guessed it, hundreds and thousands. A very messy activity, but loads of fun.
Another MLMC group had SPJ students spell bound as they listened to stories of popular Australian children’s classics such as Possum Magic.
Craft painting was also a popular activity where the students created and painted paper Australian animals such as koalas and kangaroos using recycled newspaper. They also played games such as dead fish and tail tag that we as students loved in primary school.
Here are some reflections from MLMC students:
Although we were all nervous before arriving, each of us left pleased with how our sessions had run and that all the SPJ students had really enjoyed having us visit their school.
I feel that the students loved the craft activities, they all had a smile on their faces, and although it was quite messy, we had a great time learning and engaging with the activities.
The students were all incredibly excited during both weeks, and really enjoyed reading books with me. I was a bit scared, not wanting to make mistakes while reading upside down but they laughed and thought it was great.
We also had a second session at the primary school. During this time, we encouraged the students to participate in another range of activities we had prepared. These were different from our first session as we thought we could show more of our Australian culture. By the end of our session the students all told us how much fun they had over the two weeks. As a gift from us to them, we brought native Australian plants. With their assistance we planted them as a memento of our visit and the activities we were involved in. Overall the Senior VCAL students enjoyed their time with the primary school students and loved being able to connect with younger students through Australian inspired activities.
