You Are Never Alone

I received this from Barbara Braxton this morning.

If you are at an "overseas" school and want to participate, I suggest you contact Barbara direct.

It is one week since the devastating earthquake that has shattered Christchurch and its people and there would be few schools in Australia that do not have a student or a staff member with a Kiwi connection.

Psychologists say that the trauma can be intensified by a feeling of wanting to help but being unable to do so, so to help overcome this a group of Kiwi teacher librarians teaching in Australia are proposing

ALL BLACK DAY

We are suggesting that on March 22, 2011 students be allowed to wear all black instead of their regular school uniform and pay a gold coin for the privilege. 

If school regulations demand students remain in uniform, then an alternative could be to create a coin trail over the words ANZAC, Aotearoa, Christchurch, or Otautahi (Maori for Christchurch).

Any other form of fundraising would also be welcome. If you have ideas, please share them with us to share with everybody.
The money raised will then by donated to the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal http://www.christchurchearthquakeappeal.govt.nz/ through whatever financial procedures schools have to follow to do this.

Amounts raised would then be reported to a state co-ordinator who will tally them so we can determine the total contribution of Australian schools and share this with participants. We are planning to establish a Facebook page so state and national totals are available and even photos of students participating can be posted.

We need you to
•    publicise this event as widely as possible, sending it to any network you belong to
•    consider volunteering to be your state co-ordinator which will just involve receiving emails from schools with their tallies and sending the total to a central co-ordinator.  We already have co-ordinators for NSW and Queensland, but no doubt they would appreciate help.
•    spread the word about your school’s activities with any media connections you have

If you have any questions, or are willing to act as a state co-ordinator, please contact one of us.

Barbara Braxton
Teacher librarian (retired)
COOMA NSW 2630
barbara.288@bigpond.com

Jill McGeorge
Teacher Librarian
Willoughby Public School
jill.mcgeorge@det.nsw.edu.au

Lara O'Donoghue
Teacher Librarian
Lake Macquarie High School
LARA-DALE.ODONOGHUE@det.nsw.edu.au

Margaret Forbes
Teacher librarian
Moreton Bay Boys' College
forbesm@mbbc.qld.edu.au

Victorian co-ordinator is Judith Way
judithway1@gmail.com

Teaching Resources

From Andrew Dalgliesh, Queensland Dept of Education and Training:

As part of our response to the Qld Floods (and later Cyclone Yasi) we captured and published a series of presentations by Prof Brett McDermott about dealing with the after effects of major disasters - both for students who have been directly involved and those potentially traumatised by their connection to the victims (personal and/or via the media).

Prof McDermott is Director of the Mater Child and Youth Mental Health Service in Brisbane, Associate Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Queensland, and a member of the Australian National Mental Health Disaster Response Committee and Taskforce. He was tasked by the Queensland Government to plan and deliver the Queensland child and youth disaster response with particular focus on the appropriate assessment, support and recovery of school communities including student, teachers, student support personnel, school principals, administrators, and families.

These presentations have helped our own school communities and are also available to our colleagues throughout Australia and New Zealand.

http://mediasite.eq.edu.au/eq/Catalog/pages/catalog.aspx?catalogId=289f6fa5-8758-4d6b-82c2-89b0c1e561fb

From Ken Price, Tasmanian Dept of Education and Training

As it happens I was just looking for student-created responses to disaster and found http://www.emergency.qld.gov.au/redalert.asp?details=flood which is part of a wider collection at http://www.emergency.qld.gov.au/redalert.asp
 
This is an example of government assisting young people to produce materials that are then shared globally - another dimension to the discussion of making educational materials available freely.

From Global Education on edna

Teaching resources related to Natural Disaster Management

The section headed Emergency Response lists the steps taken after a natural disaster.