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Albion Park High School students took an oath not to remain silent about domestic violence when singer and White Ribbon Ambassador Reece Mastin visited on Friday. The pop star’s lunchtime performance was to reward the school for its efforts in raising awareness of the issue, and trying to ‘‘strengthen a culture of respect’’. Principal Suzi Clapham said she wanted her students to become ‘‘global citizens’’ and respect relationships. ‘‘It’s important to me to have students exit as young people who can truly understand the world they live in and know they have responsibilities as well as rights,’’ she said. Albion Park is one of 390 schools nationwide which have elected to educate their students through the White Ribbon program and Ms Clapham hopes more school will take it on. Students learn about statistics and rates of domestic violence during maths classes and look at advertising or gender texts in English, as well as being encouraged to devise fund-raising events for White Ribbon charities. School captain Julian Lorenson admitted he didn’t think domestic violence was a ‘‘big thing’’ until he began learning about it, finding it quite confronting. ‘‘It’s a massive problem outside and you don’t know about it ... so [we] learn to intervene or assess if a situation was to arise, so you could be a solution to a problem that a person may be facing,’’ he said. He believes it should definitely be standard for young people to understand there is equality in a relationship. Reece Mastin said he was proud to speak at the school, as he found it horrifying that one woman a week was killed by a current or former partner.
Albion Park High School students took an oath not to remain silent about domestic violence when singer and White Ribbon Ambassador Reece Mastin visited on Friday.
The pop star’s lunchtime performance was to reward the school for its efforts in raising awareness of the issue, and trying to ‘‘strengthen a culture of respect’’.
Principal Suzi Clapham said she wanted her students to become ‘‘global citizens’’ and respect relationships.
‘‘It’s important to me to have students exit as young people who can truly understand the world they live in and know they have responsibilities as well as rights,’’ she said.
Albion Park is one of 390 schools nationwide which have elected to educate their students through the White Ribbon program and Ms Clapham hopes more school will take it on.
Students learn about statistics and rates of domestic violence during maths classes and look at advertising or gender texts in English, as well as being encouraged to devise fund-raising events for White Ribbon charities.
School captain Julian Lorenson admitted he didn’t think domestic violence was a ‘‘big thing’’ until he began learning about it, finding it quite confronting.
‘‘It’s a massive problem outside and you don’t know about it ... so [we] learn to intervene or assess if a situation was to arise, so you could be a solution to a problem that a person may be facing,’’ he said.
He believes it should definitely be standard for young people to understand there is equality in a relationship.
Reece Mastin said he was proud to speak at the school, as he found it horrifying that one woman a week was killed by a current or former partner.
