An Update from the JPAStudent Council

The Justice, Peace and Advocacy Council has been involved in several key events within the school and community, with a focus on education - including Edmund Rice Feast Day, Perth’s School Climate Strike and Men’s Health Week.

The first half of Edmund Rice Day involved guest speakers organised by Mr Mavros from mostly Edmund Rice organisations and other Catholic organisations to educate students from Year 7 to Year 12 on what it essentially means to be at an Edmund Rice School. Guest speakers came from Edmund Rice Camps for Kids, Edmund Rice Centre Mirrabooka, Wheelchairs for kids, Caritas, Shopfront and a speaker from the Edmund Rice Ministry in Arusha, Tanzania.

Ultimately all of these involved the Edmund Rice spirit of helping others, paired with an advocacy component of how change can be made in society through a variety of tools. When we become aware of injustice, there are three types of responses we can offer – charity, activism or advocacy. These guest speakers offered examples of all three.

These stories showcased how Aquinians can amplify the voice of the marginalised in society, which is key to the culture of Justice, Peace and Advocacy being created at Aquinas College.

The School Strike for Climate is an international strike that is done actively around the globe - beginning in November 2018. The council, under the supervision of Mr Mavros and Mr West, took a small delegation of students from Year 9 to Year 12 to not only educate themselves on this particular issue from multiple perspectives but, perhaps more importantly, to see public activism and advocacy at work on a large scale in society. Thousands of Perth students from primary schools to universities joined international organisations like Green Peace and Sea Shepard to call out the inactivity by politicians, as well as Australia’s fossil fuels industry regarding the lack of commitment towards their environmental emissions targets. Hopefully, the boys who attended found it worthwhile and were inspired by the creative styles of activism and the outspokenness of the protest to creatively and peacefully draw attention to unmet needs and unmet rights – thus promoting change towards a more just and more sustainable society in the future.

The main advocacy campaign this term took the form of the extensively planned Men’s Health Week in the first collaboration between councils since the introduction of the Senior School Student Council leadership system. It was a pleasure to be working with the students and staff across councils on the issue. Men’s mental health is an increasingly important topic in society and while the Student Wellbeing Council introduced the boys to some amazing wellbeing strategies, the Advocacy council battled the issue on a second front - to target the behaviours of the students in calling out for support from their peers. We found that students were 2.2 times more likely to give support than to feel the support was there for them, which is what we made available to students to get the conversation started via two methods: let students know “It’s ok to not be ok” and to prompt boys to ask themselves what way they can make their support more apparent to their mates. Change will only come about after the initiation of conversation, which is why the focus of mental health in Men’s Health Week by the two councils was such an excellent movement this term.

Overall, it has been an amazing term to be a part of with respect to the advocacy campaigns and education around the school. Plenty more is planned for next term with the continuation of projects regarding how boys treat each other (‘Sticks and Stone’) and respect for women by teenage boys (‘She’s Someone’). Next term also sees a rapidly expanding collaboration with other schools in the area of education and formation for Justice, Peace and Advocacy.

Over recent years we have run most of our Justice, Peace and Advocacy education and formation internally, only occasionally collaborating with Santa Maria College, CBC Fremantle and Iona Presentation College. Next term our ‘Young Justice Leaders Forum’ has grown to include delegations from sixteen Catholic Schools across Perth. The expanded collaboration will see Day 1 in July hosted at Iona Presentation College and Day 2 in September hosted at Corpus Christi College – with all schools implementing a project or campaign in the two months in-between.

As you can see – there is much ahead in this JPA area of the College. I look forward to being a part of these programs and campaigns in the coming weeks and months. I hope you can connect with these endeavours also as we try to be part of building a better future.