St Joseph's Nudgee College

October 22, 2009

Last Friday was a day of celebration and solidarity as the St Joseph’s Nudgee College community came together to raise funds for the College’s Philippines project.

The day began with all Years 5-9 students walking from the Shorncliffe Pier back to Nudgee College as part of the College’s third annual ‘Walk to the Philippines’ event.

"Friday's walk was very successful," Dean of Community and Mission Mr Chris Ryan said. 

"The participation of all the students was marvellous. It was particularly pleasing to see the enthusiasm of the Year 5-7s in their first year of participating."

At exactly the same time, 2,500 children from the five schools Nudgee College twins with in the Philippines were 'walking to Australia' in a solidarity project called Bayanihan, which is Ilongo for "Working Together to Lighten the Load".

The idea is that when the 6.6km distance each of the 650 Nudgee College students covered is added to the distance the students in the Philippines walked, the total was enough to cover the distance between Brisbane and the Philippines.

While Nudgee College students were sponsored by family, friends and members of the wider community with proceeds going to the Christian Brothers in support of ‘Anawim’ (the dear little ones), a small residential community for hearing impaired children in Kabankalan City on the Island of Negros in the Philippines, each Philippines student paid five pesos to participate.

“Five pesos is approximately 12 per cent of most daily family income,” Mr Ryan said. 

"These funds are being used for service programs where those most in need are gifted rice while some of the money is being used to support people most harmed by the recent typhoons."

Once the students returned to Nudgee College, approximately 100 people gathered for a luncheon with proceeds also going to the Christian Brothers in support of ‘Anawim’.

Attendees were a mix of the parents, Old Boys, members of the community and Christian Brothers and included approximately 40 students from Years 10-12 who travelled to the Philippines as part of the Year 10 Immersion program in the past three years.

Guest speakers included College Vice Captain, and 2007 participant, Curtis Skinner, Brother Steve McLaughlin from Oceania Province and Christine McCarthy from Hear and Say.

"All the speakers were very good. Steve spoke as a past principal and said he was very proud of Nudgee College for increasingly looking outward. Chris from Hear and Say said she was delighted about forming a partnership with Nudgee College to help hearing impaired children from impoverished areas," Mr Ryan said.

In 2010 Nudgee College will have its first group of Old Boys who participated in the Philippines Immersion program. Proving the lessons learnt stay with the boys, current Year 12 students and past Philippines visitors Sam Vollert and Greg Kelly participated in a program during the September holidays that will allow them to expand on the work started in Year 10 by acting as volunteers while at university.

In 2008 the Nudgee College community raised $25,000 to assist those in the Philippines and, while the final tally won’t be known for a couple of weeks, Mr Ryan is confident of improving on this in 2009. 

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