The Right to Vote, The Right for Education
At St Catherine’s we empower our students to look beyond their immediate surroundings and ask what impact they can have on the world around them. A focus on leadership through service strengthens the self-agency and personal leadership capacity of our girls and benefits those within our community who need support.
Below we hear from two Year 10 students, Maeli Davenport and Jisu Yang who have both been involved in leadership activities.
Maeli Davenport, One Girl Ambassador
Year 10 student, Maeli Davenport
One Girl is an organisation with the goal of using education’s extraordinary potential to improve the lives of girls and the communities in which they live.
Together with partners like Action for Rural Women’s Empowerment and Girls Empowerment Sierra Leone, they deliver high-quality education programs throughout Sierra Leone and Uganda to advocate for young girls to receive both primary and secondary education.
By working together, One Girl and the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology of Sierra Leone have been able to fully fund the distance education degrees of untrained female teachers. The next generation of girls will have these women to look up to by having guaranteed paid work with the Ministry after they graduate.
The One Girl Ambassador Program offers enthusiastic, like-minded students the opportunity to join together and learn about the benefits of girls’ education and support the girl-led initiatives of One Girl.
Training in advocacy, leadership, and fundraising is part of the Program’s objectives. I applied to be a One Girl Ambassador this year and was fortunate enough to be selected. I believe that providing girls with an education is a fundamental human right that should be guaranteed everywhere in the world.
As an Ambassador this year, it is my responsibility to help spread the word about how important primary and secondary education is for young girls. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had the chance to collaborate with Ambassadors from all over the world and participate in online workshops to learn how to operate in a not-for-profit organisation.
Jisu Yang, attendee at the Civics and Citizenship Pilot Program, 2022
Year 10 student, Jisu Yang
On the 27 October, I had the privilege of being elected to attend the Civics and Citizenship Pilot Program 2022 with Ms Curnow.
At the Program I met like-minded students from Victoria and other States. We debated whether Australia should have compulsory voting. The Program went for six hours and had a range of activities including, taking notes from key speakers to working in groups and even a soapbox.
The Program involved a lot of engagement and discussing the topic from all sides. Some participants challenged the idea of mandatory voting while others supported it, which became a wonderful opportunity to connect with others and show our own thoughts and beliefs.
My favourite speaker was Emeritus Professor Judith Brett, who explored the history and introduction of compulsory voting in Australia. She explained that women in South Australia were the first to gain their voting rights in 1894. She went on to share why Australian voting history is vital for majoritarian democracy, and the fact that compulsory voting is a community event (linking to the democracy sausage).
It was a wonderful experience. I learnt a lot about how mandatory voting is essential to keep our community democratic and the Program really widened my view on this topic.
Jisu Yang debating compulsory voting amongst her peers
