A fairer world - The Tasmanian Center for Global Learning


2011
MAD Activities



Gagebrook Primary | Geilston Bay High | Huonville High
Riana Primary | Riverside Primary | Rokeby High
Trevallyn Primary | Wynyard High



Gagebrook Primary School

A lone teacher first ran ruMAD? with his class at Gagebrook Primary in 2005. Now the whole school runs the Program and its implementation has been a model for other schools. In 2009 this was recognised with the awarding of an NAB Schools First Impact Award.  

In recent news Gagebrook Primary’s long-term contribution to making a difference for others has been recognised with the awarding of the 2011 Tasmanian Human Rights School Award! Congratulations to all students and staff from that first teacher and class in 2005 to the whole school in 2011.

Below are Gagebrook's 2011 MAD Projects. You can read the full story on the Gagebrook ruMAD? webpage.


Project 1: Keep Gagebrook Beautiful

Grade level of students involved: Prep - Grade 1 (Units A, B & D)

No. of students: 60

Teachers: Mrs Panckridge, Miss Curtain, Mr Nicholas

What we have done: At the start of the year, we viewed the project PowerPoint from Units A/B/D last year about "Dogs". Some students in our group had worked on the project last year and were very happy to see themselves and what they had done. The Prep students though have never done ruMAD? before so it was an introduction for them to what it’s all about.

We had a discussion of what is important to us and what makes us "mad, sad, and worried". These ideas were grouped together in a Values and Vision workshop to decide our vision for a perfect world.

Units A, B, and D want to help Gagebrook by:

Keep Gagebrook clean!

Use the dog-poo bag bin!

Don’t pull plants out!

Pick up rubbish!

Get more bins- don’t be lazy!


We celebrated Harmony Day by making a Harmony Chain and going to the oval for a game of soccer - our own “World Game”.

We voted for the issues/group of ideas that were the most important to us and later, a select group of 6 students worked with the art teacher through the flexible learning program to make some posters about our topic.

Over the next few weeks we worked around the school to pick up rubbish during ruMAD? time. We gathered all rubbish collected and categorised each type of rubbish to find out where the problem is coming from. Unit D started a roster of students who will act as "Litter Busters" at recess and lunch, collecting rubbish. All were very keen to get their name on the roster. They are given an "ruMAD? Litter Busters" badge to wear, a bucket and tongs or gloves.

Teachers were excited to use the new interactive smart board to graph types of rubbish collected over previous weeks. It was really interesting to see the different amounts for each type of litter. Students wrote a formal letter to Mr Read, the groundsman at the school. They asked him for more rubbish bins to be put out in the playground. They also produced large posters with slogans about putting rubbish in the bin at school. These posters were very high quality work.

Students wanted to be involved in the upcoming RSPCA cupcake day. They assisted the teacher to put information about the fundraiser into a word document that was projected onto the screen for all to see. This advertisement went out to all parents to inform them of the fundraising event. We raised $161 on Cupcake Day. We were so inspired by this that we had more ideas for purchasing plants to Keep Gagebrook Beautiful.

When the whole school had its MAD Action Day Unit B did flyers for a letterbox drop, Unit A designed a notice to be sent home, and Unit D made posters about their garage sale. We also sold plants at the MAD Action Day and joined in the face painting, MAD hair, cake stall and saw the new Toy Library.

To finish our project for the year, we had a sausage sizzle and biscuits to celebrate. We also handed out 2 sets of buckets and tongs for each class in the school so they can also “Keep Gagebrook Beautiful”. We got to take left-over plants home from our plant sale to put in our gardens at home.


Project 2: Family relationships
Grade level of students involved: Grades 2 - 3 (Units E & F)

No. of students: 40

Teachers: Mrs Didham, Miss Orchard, Ms Pierrette
What we have done: We started the year by looking at the PowerPoints from the "Poverty" and "Dog" groups from last year, as this group of grade 2/3 has students from both these project groups. By watching the PowerPoints we all found out what the other group had done and were looking forward to working together on a project. We also did a 6 Thinking Hats activity about ruMAD? to discuss what was good about it, what we didn't like and what could be done better. We recorded many ideas and valuable comments.

We moved onto a Values and Visions workshop, looking at "What is important to us and what makes us mad, sad or worried". We got all our ideas and cut them up so we could group similar items together. These were then made into sentences for our Vision Statements which looked like this:

Our vision is for a world where:

We each gave 1, 2 and 3 votes for the topics we wanted to focus on this year. The winning vision was:

Our family do fun things together and we don’t feel scared or worried by them.

So this became our topic.

We really enjoyed the book Way Home as it helped some of us to put ourselves in other peoples shoes and think about what it might be like not to have a home or family. The story was quite emotionally touching and led to some good discussions. We talked about the reasons Shane might be homeless or have left home. We also brainstormed people and organisations he could go to for help.

We also looked at Piggy Book by Anthony Browne starting with the pictures before reading the text. The Mum had no face and the Dad and kids are lazy pigs! We made a display of our Piggy Book work for the Fairer World Festival.

We started getting ideas of fun things to do with our family that do not cost money and worked in the computer lab to put all the ideas into a brochure. We folded 100 of these pamphlets about families to hand out at the Fairer World Festival. We were very proud of how the pamphlet turned out and excited to share it with our families.

All Grade 3-5 students attended the Tasmanian Centre for Global Learning's Fairer World Festival at the University of Tasmania. We each attended 3 workshops on issues related to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. We then attended the MAD Expo which showcased other schools’ projects and had community organisations displaying information. We were involved in making and displaying information about our topics this year and were very proud to show our projects to MAD Expo guests.

When we returned from the Festival, we worked on a "Head, Heart, & Hands" activity to reflect on our excursion and gather our ideas on how to move forward. We were very excited to be moving on to planning the next fun activity for our school.

We settled on a Family Fun Day where we could invite one member of our family to come to school for some activities. These were made into posters to display in the school. We had to think hard about which family member to invite. This also generated some discussion about different types of families. On our Family Fun Day we got to cook sausage rolls and scones. Miss Orchard’s Mum came to help and we really enjoyed playing games with our very special family guests!

After our Family Fun Day, we spoke about how we have looked at the happy, fun side of families but our issue was actually the not so happy, sometimes sad, side of families. We gathered ideas about who or what community organisations help children who are not feeling so safe at home and thought about which one we would like to work with and support with a fundraising activity.

Using the new SMART Board we researched the Alannah & Madeline Foundation. We looked at their values and goals to see if they matched ours and were an organisation that we would like to help. We identified that the Foundation and the school both share the value of "Respect", and that they try to keep children safe. All agreed that we should try to help them, so we brainstormed ideas for a fundraiser event to run.

We voted on the top three ideas that could be included in our upcoming MAD Action Day. Next, we had to make posters, flyers for home and newsletter items telling the rest of the school about our planned activities: face painting for 50c, MAD hair for $1.00 and a cake stall. The two classes split up to cook cakes and biscuits to sell as well as many families cooking at home and donating the items for us to sell. We raised $236.95 to send to the Alannah & Madeline Foundation and were very proud of our efforts!

Finally, we wrote thankyou letters to parents who had cooked cakes for us to sell and planned a celebration excursion to Bellerive Beach with families invited. It was great to enjoy a fun day at the park and in the sand with our families.

To finish the year we looked at the slide-show presentation of our project from the start of the year until completion.


Project 3: Access to technology and toys
Grade level of students involved: Grades 4 - 5 (Units I & K)

No. of students: 30

Teachers: Mrs Cormack, Mr McDermott

What we have done: To start the year we viewed a PowerPoint from last year's Grade 5/6 Homelessness projects showing what they did, including street art and helping Loui's Van. We then broke into groups for 6 Thinking Hats discussions to find out what we thought about different aspects of ruMAD? What works well for us and what we find difficult. We also talked about how it makes us angry or sad when we think about the issues, but then we feel good when we do something about it.

We undertook a Values and Visions workshop to find out what was important to us, why it was important, and what makes us mad, sad, or worried. Entertainment, friends & family were all top in importance, along with school, games (PS3 etc).

Our vision statements were:

Our vision is for a world where:

To celebrate Harmony Day, we used the Harmony Day student interactive quiz, Everybody Belongs. It was great fun and we got lots of answers right. We used some resources to investigate issues; including a video clip from the web about a teacher who made a difference to an autistic student through basketball. We also watched the video of Ryan's Well: it was very interesting and inspiring to see a child making such a big difference to the global issue of clean water and we had a discussion about what Ryan's vision statement would have been.

We then took a vote on our topic using the categories from our Visions for a Perfect World. The winning vision/topic was:

Our vision is for a world where everyone has access to new technology and we share our toys and all play games and have fun.

We watched a chapter form the DVD called Make Some Noise (available from the Global Learning Resource Library), the story of setting up Taking IT Global. Then we looked at websites about toys and toy libraries, also the One Laptop Per Child program. This was to help us find out what is being done already about getting technology to those without it.

We then worked to complete posters, story-boards of our thinking and displays for the upcoming Fairer World Festival. Five of our Grade 4/5 students acted as hosts at the Festival along with students from the Jordan River Learning Federation Middle School. This involved us escorting students to workshop rooms, showing dignitaries around the MAD Expo and serving afternoon tea. It was very exciting to be able to do this.

After the Fairer World Festival we did some reflection about the day and completed a "Head, Heart, Hands" activity. We also discussed ideas of where to go next with the project after getting inspiration at the Festival. We discussed the idea of starting a Toy Library at our school for parents to borrow toys and books for their kids. We viewed a YouTube clip called "First World Rap" about teenagers and technology. It was very funny!

We invited a guest speaker, Andrea Garland from The Smith Family, to talk to us about the process of starting a Toy Library. She provided many valuable resources and ideas. We thought hard about what sorts of things should go into the bags for the library.

Some of us wrote letters to organisations and shops, canvassing donations for our Toy Library. Some wrote an item for the school newsletter introducing the Toy Muster asking families to donate unused toys. These were to be raffled to raise money for new toys for the library. We also decided to create library bags with a book and associated toy or activity idea in each bag.

It was great to make up the bags. We put all the donations of toys plus some shopping we had already done into the middle of the circle. Then we started filling our toy library bags with book and matching toys on themes such as 'farm', 'fairies', 'trucks', 'cooking' etc.

Unit K worked very hard to paint and prepare the cupboard for the toy bags. Before they could be lent out, the contents of each bag was photographed for display and to make it easier to check that everything was returned. We made approximately 27 toy bags!

As part of MAD Action Day we launched our Toy Library. Many parents from the school Launching Into Learning program joined us and borrowed bags. We got some great media coverage and were featured in an online article through ABC News.

The Toy library is now open each Monday and Wednesday. Students are rostered to attend and facilitate the borrowing. Finally we got together and celebrated our achievements with a movie and chips.



Geilston Bay High School

Grade 7s at Geilston Bay High decided on a common vision:

That students can make the world better using what we have.

Because they were interested in very different issues, the group then split into five groups to work on separate projects of their own making.

Project 1: Cupcake Day for Animal Welfare

Grade level of students involved: Grade 7

No. of students: 9

Teacher: Ms Lou Christie, Ms Fran Evans

Our Vision is for a world where domestic animals can live in happiness and a loving environment.

Our issue of concern is animal rights.

What we have done: We were concerned about animal welfare and decided to hold a Cupcake Day to raise funds for the RSPCA. We hoped to raise around $50 by baking and selling cupcakes and ‘pupcakes’ (cakes that dogs can eat).

We advertised through posters, daily notices, flyers in pigeon holes, speaking in morning tutor period. Then we had to create order forms to send home with students; we also sent order forms to the residents of Queen Victoria Home in Lindisfarne.

We were amazed at how many orders came back – we had to make about 90 cupcakes and 90 pupcakes! Once we knew what ingredients we needed one of our parents who works at Food Store was very generous and donated them to us.

Baking the cakes took a lot of teamwork and a lot of time – we stayed back late after school cooking and cleaning.

Not only did our cakes sell out, we raised close to $120! One of the ladies at Queen Victoria Home said her dog loved them, and asked for the recipe!

“I hope we made a difference – making people happier by getting cupcakes, and making ourselves happy because we helped the RSPCA!” Student


Project 2: Car Wash for Child Abuse

Grade level of students involved: Grade 7

No. of students: 10

Teacher: Ms Lou Christie

Our issue of concern is child abuse.

What we have done: We wanted to make a difference for victims of child abuse, so we started by calling organisations to ask what they could do to help. We contacted Compassion Australia, Lifeline, Pulse Youth Health Services, Sexual Health Service Tasmania, and the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, who sent us a fundraising kit.

We decided to organise a car wash at our school, and offer to wash our teachers’ and parents’ cars: $5 for outside; $15 for inside and outside.

To make sure our costs were low we sought donations of car-washing supplies from Kmart and K&D, who generously gave us chamois and detergent.

We put flyers under the wipers of cars and gave them out on Parent-Teacher night. We also placed ads in the staff room, newsletter and daily notices – you couldn’t miss us! Then we made a list of all the cars we had to wash.

All we needed was the weather… unfortunately we had to reschedule when our first date got rained out. But once we had sunshine again, it took us a day and a half to wash all the cars – we even washed a bus for $30 – that job needed a step ladder! We washed 20 cars and our hard work paid off - we raised $170!

“I feel great! I know all the money’s going to a good cause.” Student


Project 3: Teenage Pregnancy

Grade level of students involved: Grade 7

No. of students: 8

Teacher: Ms Lou Christie

Our issue of concern is teenage health and partying.

What we have done: We wanted to make a change to how teenagers think about partying and taking risks, so we held a “Safe Party” Party! At first, we wanted this to be a sleepover at the school, but had to settle for having the party at tea time. We all turned up in our pyjamas anyway!

“We wanted to get the message out, you don’t need a party with sex, drugs and alcohol to have fun,” Student

We knew that the best people to inform others about teen pregnancy would be teenage mums, so we invited two guests to speak at our party - one with a baby, and one who is pregnant – to talk about what they like and dislike about being young mums, and to answer our questions.

We also showed the movie ‘Juno’ and organised some fun games to de-stygmatise condoms – a relay you had to run with a blown-up condom between your knees, or a race to put one on a banana!

We got the condoms donated from Pulse, and gave everyone a lolly bag that had 2 condoms and information on where you can go if you’re in trouble.

Our posters had slogans like ‘don’t be a fool, wrap your tool’ and ‘don’t be silly, wrap your willy’ (we came up with that one!)

A party needs food, and ours had great food! We put on free spag bol, icecream and lollies. It all worked really well – we must have had 30 to 50 people there – everyone!

“Actually pretty proud of it because more people turned up than I thought…. Everybody came – people came that you didn’t expect to come.” Student


Project 4: Courtyard Re-development

Grade level of students involved: Grade 7

No. of students: 10

Teacher: Ms Lou Christie

Our issue of concern is that the Year 7/8s don’t have a chill-out space of their own.

What we have done: We decided we wanted to redevelop an ugly courtyard where the school used to keep chickens. It was not being used due to thick chicken mess and weeds, but we thought it had potential to be turned into a nice central place for students.

We surveyed the whole school on what they would like to see in the courtyard – ideas included a pond, seats, and BBQ – then from this we did a design, and created a model.

When we took our design to the Principal, she was supportive but recommended against the pond; we realised that this would not be an efficient use of water or very practical to maintain. But with a green light to start, we began digging out the weeds and the deep layer of chicken soil to see if there was a concrete slab underneath to put pavers on.

We made new garden beds and sought Council support for plants to go in them. Landcare provided our mulch.

So that everyone feels like it is their space we’re inviting other year groups to add to it – the design technology class have been creating mosaics, and perhaps we’ll have murals added in future. The difference is amazing already!

Thanks to Mr Franks and Sandy for their help!


Project 5: Think Pink Day

Grade level of students involved: Grade 7

No. of students: 6

Teacher: Ms Lou Christie

Our issue of concern is the conditions in which some farmed pigs live.

What we have done: We want to help stop the factory farming of pigs by raising awareness. We decided to organise a "Think Pink Day"– a day of FREE everything including FREE RANGE and FREE the PIGS!

To get other students in the spirit we offered hair colouring at lunch time with pink hairspray, and BBQed delicious veggie burgers for everyone in front of our Think Pink mural.

We invited Emma Haswell from the Brightside Farm Sanctuary to our school, and her presentation was seen by students from each Grade. She showed us the way pigs are treated, talked to us about the Brightside Farm, and introduced us to Linnie the rescued pig. Everyone enjoyed patting Linnie, and we hope that they now care more about pigs and how they live.


Project 6: Global Connections Class

Grade level of students involved: Grades 7 - 10

No. of students: 15

Teacher: Ms Megan Gunn

Our vision is a world where all children have access to education, and are safe and healthy.

Our issue of concern is to support organisations working with young people in adversity, whether it is poverty, social disadvantage, disability or illness.

What we have done: Through a number of site visits, research activities and guest speakers from across the globe, students have been able to develop an understanding of poverty and adversity. Guest speakers have included the founder of the Blue Dragon Foundation in Vietnam, and a local, previously orphaned child who now works tirelessly for TASK in Cambodia (TASK is an affiliated organisation to TEAR Australia, who work across the world to improve the lives of people living in poverty and adversity).

Students have also visited Ronald McDonald House, the Royal Hobart Hospital, cooked for Louie’s Van and provided eggs and bacon to our school breakfast program twice a week to develop an understanding of the needs of organisations supporting adversity and poverty in the local context. Several students are now working towards raising valuable funds for Ronald McDonald House to renovate a room, while others are volunteering at Southern Support School (a local school for children with disabilities) on a weekly basis. Already $355.25 has been raised for Ronald McDonald house by students rattling tins at the Hobart Chargers basketball game on 12 August.

We sought the support of a local travel agent who offers volunteer holidays: The Travel Studio. Together, we have developed a 10 day working trip to Vanuatu, one of the poorest countries in the world. We currently have 13 students and four staff planning to make the trip to the island of Eroka. In January 2012, we will travel to Vanuatu to provide funding and work alongside locals to build a water tank and provide hygiene education for the locals. We will also get opportunities to work with the children of Vanuatu, participate in daily aspects of village life, and experience Vanuatu’s rich culture. We hope to return from the trip with an understanding of poverty informed by firsthand experience: knowledge we can use to create change and inspire others.

The water tank will cost $1500 to build. To fundraise for this, as well as travel scholarships, and other projects, we have organised a number of very successful fundraisers. We sought donations from Eastlands stores for a raffle, including nearly $300 in cash from the Express Service Centre (Engraving Key Cutting shop). Our raffle raised nearly $600 and ran really smoothly. We also had a stall of cookies, muffins and milkshakes at the Hobart City Council’s Feel Good Festival in National Youth Week.

Walk 4 Vanuatu: We organised a sponsored walk on 26 November from Geilston Bay across the Tasman Highway and Bridge, all the way to Parliament Lawns in Salamanca. We had 13 walkers and 2 dogs, and carried our school banner as well as another we made, reading ‘Walk 4 Vanuatu’. At the Lawns, more of our volunteers were cooking a BBQ to raise funds. Southern Cross TV interviewed us at the outset of our walk, and it took us 2hrs to reach the finish line. We are still collecting money from sponsors at our website.

The largest fundraiser we organised was a Cocktail Party & Auction for 11 November. We received donated items from ABC Radio/Shop, Masterpiece Fine Art and Antiques, Schweppes, South Hobart Butchery, Ball & Chain Grill, Women In Tourism, Port Arthur Historic Site, Rhys Jones Pharmacy, Hawthorn Football Club, Shoreline Hotel, Retravision New Norfolk, True Value Hardware Lindisfarne, Barwicks Landscape Supplies, Old Pontville Wines, AAA Car Rentals, GBHS Chaplaincy Committee, Sue Aird, Kate Thureau, and Karen’s Nutrimetics. Our students catered, made the bidding sheets, sold tickets, arranged flowers, emceed, performed music, made speeches, and even auctioned some of the items, with the help of Anthony Stewart from Beacon Foundation.

“Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘Be the change, you want to see in the world’ What change do I want to see in the world? I want to see fairness and equality.

I don’t want to see us, here tonight with food on the table, fresh water in the tap and a roof over our heads, while people on the other side of the world are dying from diseases that our local GP could cure or dying from starvation when we throw so much away…

Some of us have never been on a plane yet alone overseas; this trip will be one to remember, rewarding and an experience we will never forget.” Student, Leah, speaking at the Cocktail Party & Auction fundraiser



Huonville High School

Huonville High School were winners of the 2010 Tasmanian Human Rights School Award for the work of their SWAP group. The group has expanded its wonderful anti-poverty work in 2011.
Project: Students Working Against Poverty (SWAP)

Grade level of students involved: Grades 7 - 10

No. of students: over 60

Teacher: Ms Nicola Smith, Ms Pam Lane

Our issue of concern is global poverty.

What we have done: Our Students Working Against Poverty (SWAP) Group has continued to make a world of difference this year. We used Anti-Poverty Week to raise awareness through creative initiatives in school and also in the community, including a “Poverty on the Pavement” action, along with creating anti-poverty designs and slogans for our “Bagging Out Poverty” activity.

"Poverty on the Pavement" was an ABC of poverty! Our SWAP students came up with a poverty-based message for each letter of the alphabet (no mean feat for the Z person!), including some ‘take action’ messages. On 18 October (the day after International Day for the Eradication of Poverty), we wrote our messages in chalk as a colourful trail around the school quad and walkway areas, and with the approval of the local council we wrote our messages on the pavement in the Huonville township! We knew we were getting our message across when people stopped to read them and talk to us.

For "Bagging out Poverty", our SWAP group were joined by 24 grade 6s from Huonville Primary. Together we created some colourful anti-poverty logos to transfer on to calico bags. Students got these bags to take home but the best designs are also being reproduced for sale in our SWAP shop and at events that we attend.

Our Anti-Poverty Week activities on campus also included signing postcards to support the Stop the Traffik campaigns (Chocolate & Cotton) and our ‘anti-poverty’ wishing tree – which got a lot of our students thinking about poverty!

“I believe our students are not only improving their own understanding about issues around poverty but they are also educating the local community about global issues. They are becoming empowered and active global citizens – leaders of the future.” Pam Lane, Acting Principal

In October, our SWAP students received national recognition for their two years of work supporting impoverished communities around the world and raising awareness of poverty issues in the local community. On 21 October, representatives from the SWAP group – students and staff – were flown to Melbourne to receive the national Anti-Poverty Week Schools Award at the Melbourne Town Hall, presented by Connections UnitingCare.

Over 60 students at Huonville High School are members of SWAP – the group raises awareness of poverty related issues, as well as raising money to support solutions to poverty. The SWAP group have raised over $40 000 during the last 2 years – all of which has been used to support projects in countries such as Cambodia, Laos, India and East Timor - such as the purchase of land for an orphanage in Cambodia. The students run a ‘SWAP’ shop based at ‘ds Cafe’ in Huonville and also ‘Coffee 4 A Cause’ at local events to raise money to assist with poverty relief projects around the world.

“These projects not only build the students’ understanding of human rights issues around the world but also their employability skills as they undertake barista training and practice their skills at local events.” Nic Smith, Pathway Planning Officer

 


Riana Primary School


Project Title: Enterprising for Malighat

Teacher: Ms Donna Harris

Our issue of concern is children living in poverty in India.

What we have done: The students at Riana Primary School are a sister school to the Malighat school and orphanage in India. Ms Harris visited Malighat in 2008.

The students have been running their own enterprises to raise funds for the school and have raised $1000 already this year. Each enterprise also has an educational purpose and most of them have an environmental message as well.

The businesses have included:



Riverside Primary School

Project 1: Fair Trade Riverside

Grade level of students involved: Grades 5 - 6 ruMAD? Team

Teacher: Mrs Lindy Bailey (Chaplain)

Our vision is to help children back into education through supporting Fairtrade.

Our issue of concern is unfair trade and child labour.

What we have done: Our ruMAD? team set themselves the goal of having Riverside Primary become Tasmania’s first Fairtrade accredited school.

Throughout the year they have focussed on encouraging the school community to switch to buying Fairtrade products, which first required them to identify all the parts of the school community which might be affected, and canvass their support. The students wrote letters to the School Association, Coles (who supply sports equipment), senior staff, and the canteen, and put information and feedback requests into the school newsletter.

Their letters were well-received: Coles Supermarkets forwarded it to their marketing team and also contacted the manufacturer and the distributor of their sports equipment for assurance that they are child labour-free; and the students were invited to speak at the School Association meeting and Student Representative Council. This resulted in very positive feedback and full support.

Students devised and ran a very successful ‘Milkshake Monday’ Awareness Day (Nov 14th), making Fairtrade chocolate milkshakes to sell to students and staff. The money raised will purchase Fairtrade sports balls for the PE department. It was a great chance for everyone to try out Fairtrade products: the milkshakes tasted great; parents watched a presentation by students before tasting Fairtrade tea and coffee; and a student verus staff and parents soccer match was held with an Etiko Fairtrade soccer ball.

The ruMAD? team took every opportunity to raise awareness, also creating: a presentation for the front foyer PowerPoint display; a website package for other students; a flyer to encourage school families to support Fairtrade; and a stall at the ‘Christmas on the Lawn’ school community celebration.

Now, at the end of the year, all their dedicated, tireless and passionate work has paid off! The students applied for Fairtrade accreditation for Riverside Primary with the Fair Trade Association – and were successful!

Riverside Primary were also Highly Commended for the 2011 Tasmanian Human Rights School Award!


Project 2: 40 Hour Famine

No. of students: 250 students and staff

Teacher: Mrs Lindy Bailey (Chaplain)

Our Vision is increasing awareness of how many children don’t experience the same rights as we do here in Riverside.

Our Issue of concern is global poverty.

What we have done: We wanted to support the work of World Vision through their 40 Hour Famine fundraiser, but as primary students we are too young to go without food for 40 hours. Instead the students decided to have their own version where they would eat only boiled rice and plain water for the entire school week during the hours of 9am-3pm.

Fresh rice was cooked for recess and lunch and students and staff ate together out in the open where all the other students could come over to ask what was happening and have discussions about the idea.

Many more joined throughout the week as they too were inspired to help, and many family members joined in to support and encourage their children. Riverside Primary has been the top 40 Hour Famine fundraising primary school in Tasmania for the last 2 years!


Rokeby High School

Rokeby High School has been using the ruMAD? Program to improve student engagement in learning since 2009. This has been made possible by a partnership with the Tasmanian Centre for Global Learning - read more on the Rokeby ruMAD? webpage.

Project: Rokeby High 4 Firefly Concert

No. of students: Organised by the ruMAD? Options class with help from the whole school.

Teachers: Miss Emma Christian, Miss Olivia Stevens, Miss Tullia Chung-Tilley

Our issue of concern is the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

What we have done: For the second year in a row, we decided to organise a concert that would educate our community about the MDGs, and this time to also raise funds for the Firefly Children’s Home in Nepal. Firefly provides food, shelter, education, and a family-like environment for children who have either lost parents or whose parents do not have the means to provide for them.

With our ruMAD? Options class leading the planning, the whole school got involved, each class taking on a responsibility: promoting to other schools, inviting politicians, writing media releases, seeking sponsorship, decorating the gym, creating t-shirts and tickets, arranging stalls for catering and merchandise, organising security and emergency personnel, filming, lighting and audio, music equipment, and of course, musicians!

We secured some great acts including our own Ballpoint and Space Indians, and mainland acts Tim-O-Matic from Australia’s Got Talent, Heroes for Hire and For Our Hero. We held some fundraisers for things we needed for the Concert, including a slave auction on 8th August, where the ‘slaves’ had to perform menial tasks for their buyers for two periods.

The Grade 8s took on the job of awareness-raising at the concert.

Miss Chung-Tilley’s SOSE class split into groups (one for each MDG) and devised a way to communicate each Goal’s importance to concert-goers: a flash mob and dance routine about gender equality (MDG3); a PowerPoint and flyers on diseases of poverty (MDG6); and having Tim-O-Matic lead the crowd in clicking every 3 seconds to demonstrate how often a child dies of poverty (MDG4).

The team of Grade 8 boys who took on MDG8 (global partnership) had the idea of creating street art murals around the school buildings to show and grow the school community’s support for the Goals. After taking a costed proposal to the school Board, the murals were approved and the students collaborated with a street artist to create a mural of all 8 MDGs on the outside of the gym in time for the concert. They’ve since completed even more amazing murals - for MDGs 2, 3, 5 and 7!

The concert was a great success, with hundreds packing the audience, fantastic performances, student and community organisation stalls, and special guests such as Senator Catryna Bilyk who launched the night for us.

"I am a great supporter of ruMAD? because it teaches young people that, no matter who they are, anyone is capable of making a difference in the world. The event the students have organised today is proof of this and they should be congratulated for their efforts." Senator Bilyk (Read all of Senator Bilyk’s media release about our event.)



Trevallyn Primary School

Project: Making a Difference for People with a Disability

Grade level of students involved: Grades 4 - 5

Teacher: Mrs Peg Smith

Our vision is a world where everyone can participate to the best of their ability.

Our issue of concern is disability.

What we have done: As part of our learning program this year, we have looked at disabilities and how we can make a difference to the lives of the disabled. We sold books, videos, and DVDs to raise funds for Mrs Davis' son, Callum, who has a spinal injury and is in a wheelchair.

We developed an understanding of the challenges faced by people who live with different sorts of disabilities, through our own research and class visits from people in our community. We met and learnt from three people who were amputees, a woman who is blind and has an amazing dog, and two men who use wheelchairs. In groups, we researched other disabilities and related issues, including what it is like to be deaf, have asthma or cancer, live in poverty or be elderly.

We used our research to create awareness posters and useful aids for people with different disabilities or challenges - our inventions included: a shower bath pack to help an amputee in the shower; a sign language book to help deaf children communicate at school; senior plates for people over 75 to display in their cars; a blind-aid helmet that detects objects with a sensor and sends a signal to an earpiece which makes a noise; grip gloves for people using wheelchairs; and a waist-pouch so that asthmatics can always have their puffer with them.


Wynyard High School

Wynyard High was inspired to run a MAD Day after attending our Fairer World Festival. They were fortunate that teacher, Sue Heart, was familiar with ruMAD? having recently transferred from Smithton High School which had done an amazing international project the previous year.

Project: MAD Day

Grade level of students involved: Grades 9 -10

No. of students: 8 ruMAD? students organising; whole school involved in the MAD Day

Teacher: Ms Sue Heart

Our vision is: to raise the image of Wynyard High School in the wider community; to provide the opportunity for members of the community to share their skills, knowledge, and wisdom with our students; and to provide students with the opportunity for learning experiences they would not otherwise have.

Our issue of concern is bringing the school and community together.

What we have done: On Thursday 29th September, our options class ran an ruMAD? Day. The day was run with the intention of raising the image of our school in the community and allowing students to try things they normally don't get the chance to do.

We invited 23 community members to run workshops and it was a raging success! We heard nothing but good feedback from the students, teachers and community members. The workshops included: archery, understanding war, guitar and singing performance, jiu-jitsu, graffiti art, floristry, police work, make-up, hairdressing, wall climbing, how to make a surfboard, photography, lawn bowls, 20 pictures project, public speaking, making a difference through art, jewellery making, card making, jelly slice, cupcakes, Gaelic football, fitness, Kelly pool, knitting, craft, singing, farm work, electrics, beach fun, and table tennis!

The day had a really good vibe, sending us to the long weekend on a high. At recess, Greg Heart came and entertained us with some pretty awesome drum beats. He included everyone by handing out percussion instruments and getting everyone into the rhythm. At lunchtime, we had the opportunity to see the Doctors Rocksters perform. They were pretty awesome and everybody loved them. After lunch, a singing group called Iron and Clay performed, sharing their stories with us and performing some awesome tunes which got us up dancing in the mosh pit!

What began as a discussion of values and interests, coupled with a desire to initiate and complete a project in our designated time frame, became our first Wynyard High School MAD Day. We are so grateful to the community members who came along to work with our students; freely offering their time, expertise and resources simply for the sake of giving. This is perfectly in line with the idea that it “takes a village to raise a child”.

"The day flowed well with no hiccups and was an enjoyable day for all. I am looking forward to the next ruMAD? Day." Teacher

"I really enjoyed the make-up workshop. Natalie really helped us all with how to apply make-up properly. I also enjoyed lawn bowls. It was really fun getting out there and playing a new sport that not everyone had played before. Keen for the next MAD Day." Student

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