Caritas Australia runs Just Leadership Days to engage students with social justice issues.

This week a number of Year 9 students who form part of our Just Leadership group at Santa Maria, attended the workshop held at Clontarf Aboriginal College.

The Just Leadership Group is a co-curricular group run at many Catholic schools to develop leadership skills, encouraging students to be ‘just leaders’ – leaders for justice, in their schools and communities.

The workshop conducted by Nathan Leaver, Caritas Justice Educator WA/NT, included talks from Clontarf students who spoke about Clontarf and their heritage and Caritas Indonesia (Karina) Program Manager Yohanes Baskoro. Yohanes is visiting Australia from Indonesia to celebrate and highlight the work of Caritas Australia with its Indonesian partner organisations.

Year 9 students Kaylee Fong and Dilara Wijesingh said it was a great experience for the Just Leadership girls. The day began with a variety of traditional Indigenous dances as well as a smoking ceremony. They attended Mass led by Bishop Sproxton and enjoyed pancakes for morning tea to celebrate Shrove Tuesday. They heard from many inspiring people speaking about the works of Caritas Australia and the benefits of Project Compassion. The guest speakers spoke about the importance of Lent and hope and encouraged them to ‘give Lent 100%’.

They participated in a Just Leadership Workshop where they were able to socialise with other schools and created and shared ideas on how they could promote fundraising for Project Compassion at school.

It was an enjoyable day and they would recommend going next year.