By Kyra Gillespie
The Grade 5 and 6 students at Beaconsfield Primary School have been hard at work on their Youth Out Loud social justice projects.
At the start of the term each of the five groups chose a social justice issue that they felt most passionate about as the focus of their project.
The students’ next task was to design a fund-raising initiative for their chosen cause.
Team Cancer, Joke’s On You (CJOY) aims to bring joy to children with cancer through the power of laughter.
To do this, they have created a joke book that they hope to distribute to kids at the Monash Children’s Hospital.
“The scientists haven’t been able to find the cure, but we know how to tell jokes,” CJOY team leaders Kayla and Rylee said.
“We want to bring a positive mindset to kids who have cancer.”
Team leaders Kayla and Rhylee organised their group into three sections: media and communications, graphics and research, to get their ideas off the ground.
To raise money they are having a lolly jar guessing competition at 50 cents a guess or three guesses for $1.
Help Your People Everywhere (HYPE) has chosen to tackle homelessness and poverty locally by creating blankets out of plastic bags and hosting their own soup kitchen.
The group has had to learn how to crochet in order to make the plastic bag blankets.
“I am passionate about helping other people, and it makes me sad to think that there are people who don’t have homes,” HYPE group leader Eli said.
Back Off Bullies (BOB) have created a Positive Pack complete with tips, quotes, stress balls and an original book called BOB the Elephant.
BOB the Elephant is a ‘choose your own adventure’ style book, which lets readers take the path of the bully or the path of the person being bullied to show how bullying is experienced from different perspectives.
The Rubbish Raiders (RR) are making environmentally conscious keyrings and stickers, and are performing a trash puppet show for the preps to inform them about the importance of recycling.
Pairing Animals With Smiles (PAWS), are raising money to fight animal cruelty.
Most of the students have pets of their own and feel that everyone should treat animals kindly.
The Youth Out Loud project aims to get kids thinking about issues in the wider community and come up with possible solutions.
At the end of the term, each group will donate the funds raised to their respective charities.
