ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLIES PROGRAM

Our guest speakers last night were Scott Gall and Gemma Gibbons (both 18 years old) who took part in "Alternative Schoolies in 2014" a project in the Philippines. Scott and Gemma together with 14 other young people (4 boys and 10 girls) from across Moyne, Warrnambool. Corangamite Shires spent 23 days at a village on the outskirts of Davau as well as in Saboo and Manilla. Their project was to refurbish 12 dilapidated classrooms at TV Fernandez Elementary School in Indangan Village. The buildings had been badly damaged by a super typhoon which hit the Philippines in 2013.

The aim was to refurbish 12 classrooms which were so damaged and required so much hard physical labour they only managed 9 buildings (8 classrooms and one teachers room). They had a local carpenter / builder to help them but other than that they did the remainder of the restoration work. Gemma commented that OH&S was non existent. The group enjoyed the interaction with the local children, many of whom had not seen white people before. The school day started with a dance to pop music and this doubled as the morning exercise program for the children. The Australian students were surprised at how nationalistic the local children were with a pledge to their country and by singing the national anthem daily.

The Visitors also noted how respectful the children and young people are to their elders. No one was permitted to leave any food on their plates and they spoke of eating rice several times a day. They also ate a local delicacy - chickens which were within two days of hatching. Some members of the group spent time at Paradise Island; they were fascinated by the children's agility at climbing coconut palms and they witnessed great poverty when they visited the Smoking Mountain ­ which is nothing more than a huge pile of rubbish. Some of the group visited Manila. In Sabu they visited an orphanage for children under three years of age who had been orphaned by the 2013 typhoon.

The group bagged about 200 tons of Rice and donated this to about 500 local families, but still people missed out. People are very poor and they were very grateful for the donation of rice. Because of changes in the exchange rate the group were about $3,000 short and did not have the funds to meet their desired targets so they got onto Facebook and asked friends and family to donate money. This was so successful they raised an extra $5000 which allowed them to purchase more rice and give it away to extra poor families. It was an eye opener for the group to see how the local people live in simple crude dwellings with dirt floors and Gemma said how grateful and lucky it made them feel to come from such an affluent country.

Gemma and Scott said it was a life changing experience and both plan to return to do more work. The students who attended Alternative Schoolies all raised their own funds to go away.

Geraldine Edgar Ralph the program Coordinator spoke of her pride and gratitude in the students, their hard work, the initiative they showed raising the extra funds and of Scott’s generosity when he donated money from his savings. In addition to the rebuilding of several classrooms the group helped provide food for 670 families. A wonderful effort from a small group of students who chose to do some good rather than head for Queensland to get drunk and party.

See some fantastic photos of their experiences on www.alternative2schoolies.com