Leaders of and for Change

Today, I had the privilege—alongside 25 other Year 11 students—of attending a talk run by the Salvation Army that focused on how we can drive real social change in our local area.

The session kicked off with an overview of how the Salvation Army operates and supports people at risk all across Australia. After that, we were split into groups and asked to pick one of the top five issues currently affecting our electorate, Wentworth. Our task was to come up with a fundraising initiative to help tackle it. The five issues were: mental health, housing affordability and homelessness, climate change, and financial hardship/inclusion.

My group—made up of me, Thomas Gascoine, Luca Alexander, and Harry Golovsky—chose mental health, which we felt was the most pressing issue in our area. While researching, we came across some pretty confronting stats. One that stuck with us was that 44% of Australians experience mental health challenges at some point in their lives—that’s about 8.6 million people.

We brainstormed different fundraising ideas and ended up going with a “Boardies Mufti Day” paired with a lunchtime sausage sizzle and an ice bath challenge. Everyone who enters the ice bath would go into the draw to win a term-long canteen pass. We chose this idea because ice baths have been shown to help reduce stress and improve mindfulness, so it ties in really well with the message of mental health, while also giving students a fun challenge and reward.

Some of the other group pitches were also awesome—like Max Scales’ group’s idea for a homelessness fundraiser inspired by Toys ‘n Tucker, and Tom Dawson’s group’s idea for a free community dinner where doctors are available to chat about basic health and wellbeing to help tackle access to healthcare issues.

Overall, the whole experience was super eye-opening. It really made us think more deeply about our community and the role we can play in making a positive impact.

Hugo Cardonnel
Cranbrook Student