Your Home: Our World
Tasmanian School Forums on Child Rights

A unique opportunity for students around Tasmania to connect with young people from developing countries and contribute to the achievement of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.

Poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom. Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Make poverty history…
Nelson Mandela

Your Home: Our World is a project of the Tasmanian Centre for Global Learning in partnership with Bahay Tuluyan. It is funded by AusAID as part of the Australian Government's Community Call to Action initiative.

Since 2006, the Tasmanian Centre for Global Learning (TCGL) has hosted the Tasmanian leg of the challenging and informative Kids View tour of Australia. Kids View is presented by two former street children and an Australian volunteer based at Bahay Tuluyan in the Philippines. The tour aims to empower young Australians to make a difference for children all over the world.

As the result of a grant from AusAID, the Tasmanian leg of the 2010 tour has been  extended to include 5 full-day forums in regional areas and to support participating schools in an ongoing project.

The Your Home: Our World project is now in its second stage. In April 2010, five Child Rights Forums were held around Tasmania - hosted by Huonville High, Rokeby High, Gagebrook Primary, Kings Meadows High and Ulverstone High - and attended by 15 other schools. Thank you to the host schools for providing great facilities, food, and assistance which resulted in five highly successful forums!

At the Child Rights Forums students watched a presentation from Angel and Nonoy, two former street children now living at Bahay Tuluyan in the Philippines. This powerful presentation showed what life is like on the streets and that it was the individual choice of Angel and Nonoy to take control of their lives and seek assistance from  Bahay Tuluyan. Both Angel and Nonoy are now completing school, have hopes for their future, and are helping other street children to achieve their dreams. They are presenting their story to Australian children to encourage them to understand that 'change begins with me' and that they too can help children around the world.

Following the presentation by Angel and Nonoy, students participated in workshops about the Millennium Development Goals. These gave them a real life understanding of what it is like to survive on $1 a day. The workshop kits will shortly be available for purchase from TCGL.

Schools have now begun work on their ongoing project: all are committed to taking what they learnt at the Forum to develop a project based on one of the Millennium Development Goals. Most schools will be completing their projects in term two. The schools will be supported in this by the MDG Champions and the Tasmanian Centre for Global Learning.

All the participating students will come together again in Anti-Poverty Week (October 11 - 15) to showcase and celebrate their project achievements.

Schools and their projects are listed below:

School	Class	Project	Progress
Brooks High	Grade 10
Burnie Primary	Grade 5/6	Blue Dragon, Vietnam	Burnie Primary School is supporting the non-profit organisation, Blue Dragon in Vietnam. Blue Dragon has many supporters and volunteers in Tasmania who are helping the grade 5/6 students.
Dover District High	Grade 5/6	Bahay Tuluyan, Philippines	Dover District High School grade 5/6 students were inspired by the stories of Angel and Nonoy at the Child Rights Forum and have chosen to do a project supporting Bahay Tuluyan. They are currently working with Bahay Tuluyan to decide how they can best support the organisation.
East Derwent Primary	Grade 3/4 and Grade 5/6		Two East Derwent Primary classes are working together for the Your Home: Our World project. The classes are currently working through the ruMAD? process to decide what their project will be.
Gagebrook Primary	Grade 5/6	Bahay Tuluyan, Philippines	When Bahay Tuluyan were in Tasmania they visited this grade 5/6 class at Gagebrook Primary School. The class were particularly inspired by their with work street children. Other Gagebrook Primary  classes are doing ruMAD? projects focused on street people in Tasmania, so this grade 5/6 class has chosen to support the work of Bahay Tuluyan with street children in the Philippines.
Geilston Bay High
Herdsmans Cove Primary
Huonville High	Grade 8 English	MDG Posters	Two Huonville High School classes are participating in Your Home: Our World.. The grade 8 English class is creating posters about the Millennium Development Goals and their own lives here. The School is also forming a team to become 'Energy Conservation Monitors'. The team is ensuring the school is conserving as much energy as possible each day and promoting energy conservation in the school.
Huonville High	Grade 8 SOSE	School in Samoa	This class is learning about the Pacific Islands. Their teacher, Janet Harrington, volunteered in Samoa and has contacts with a school there, so the class is working on a project to support the school.
Huonville Primary	Grade 6	Bethlehem House, Kenya	Huonville Primary School have a connection with the organisation, Bethlehem House, which provides services to children in Kenya. The class is working on a project to support Bethlehem House's work.
Kings Meadows High
Lindisfarne Primary	Grade 6	Malighat School and Orphanage, India	This Lindisfarne Primary School class were inspired by Jess Jacobson, a local young person who supports Malighat School and Orphanage in India. They have chosen to work with Jess on supporting the orphanage in someway.
Margate Primary	Grade 3/4	Hope for Children, Cambodia	Through their teacher, this class is helping the HfCC Orphanage in Cambodia. It is developing pen pals with children in the orphanage.  When their teacher visits the orphanage in September she will teach an English class and help the Cambodian students to write letters back to the Margate Primary students. The class is also: - Donating toothbrushes with buddy classes at Margate and has almost reached its aim of 200! - Collecting useful school materials, toys and clothing for their teacher to take, as this is a big need at the orphanage. - Using money boxes to fundraise for immunisations, as they have learned about the mother baby program and the recent outbreak of typhoid and malaria. - Doing a project on Cambodia, finding out about the language, history, climate culture, etc. - Raising money through a Shades 4 Aids Day.
Montrose Bay High
Penguin High
Riverside Primary	Grade 6	Room to Read, Nepal	Two classes at Riverside Primary are supporting the Room to Read organisation, which builds classrooms and libraries, and provides books to communities in developing countries. Both grade 6 classes are working with the Australian body of the organisation in Sydney to establish what is currently needed by Room to Read.
Rokeby High	Grade 7	Live Below the Line, schools in Cambodia	This class is doing it all! They are supporting the 'Live Below the Line' campaign which aims to encourage people to live conservatively in western society. They are also organising a concert  for young people in the Rokeby area to raise awareness about eradicating extreme poverty in the world. The class has lined up some great national and local bands and acts for the concert and is working hard on putting it all together.
Rokeby High	Grade 8
Smithton High
St James Catholic College	Grade 6	Shinta Mani, Cambodia	A student in the Grade 6 class at St James regularly volunteers in Cambodia with her family. The class has been inspired by this student and is supporting the Shinta Mani organisation. At this stage they are finding out what support is needed.
Trevallyn Primary	Grade 5	Bahay Tuluyan, Philippines	This class has broken up into groups, each of which is focusing on a different project. One group is supporting Bahay Tuluyan's 'Ikot Tampayan Star Children's Program' which supports children on the streets of Manila. It has a van that visits six districts in Manila and provides food, water, and social services for the kids. The Trevallyn Primary group is making vans out of cardboard boxes into money boxes and putting these in local businesses to raise awareness and funds for the Ikot Tampayan Star program.
Ulverstone High	Grade 8		The class has just finished exploring various issues related to poverty such as, fair trade, the MDGs, and extreme poverty. It is now deciding how it would like to help and in what region of the world.

To find out more contact:
The Tasmanian Centre for Global Learning
4 Battery Square, Battery Point, 7004
Ph 03 6223 1025 or 0400 824 261
Email: mary@afairerworld.org

 

Millennium Development Goals

In 2000, world leaders including Australia’s Prime Minister signed the United Nations Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of targets to be reached by 2015 – these are the Millennium Development Goals. The eight goals – which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and the world’s leading development institutions. Find out more abut the UN MDGs and the Millennium Campaign.

MDG Champions

These are young Tasmanians (18-25 years old) selected for their passion for social justice and for making a difference. They have volunteered to be a part of Your Home Our World in 2010 under the guidance of the Tasmanian Centre for Global Learning. Their commitment is to assist and inspire Tasmanian students to connect with young people in developing countries in support of the Millennium Development Goals.

Bahay Tuluyan (“house of welcome”) is a non-profit organisation based in the Philippines that empowers street children to look after themselves and fellow children. Bahay Tuluyan offers opportunities for young Australians to volunteer at its Centres and each year brings two former street children to tour Australia to tell their incredible personal stories. The tour aims to promote children’s rights and has already inspired hundreds of Tasmanian students to learn more. Find out more about Bahay Tuluyan Philippines and Bahay Tuluyan Australia.  

AusAID is the Australian Government agency responsible for managing Australia's overseas aid program. The objective of the aid program is to assist developing countries reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development, in line with Australia's national interest. Find out more about AusAID.

Community Call to Action is a pilot initiative of the Australian Government that supports activities to raise awareness about global poverty and the Millennium Development Goals. Find out more about the Community Call to Action initiative.