"Sacré-Coeur Association of New South Wales Inc"

Bowraville, NSW

St Mary’s School Bowraville "Kitchen- Heart of the School Project “

The education of Indigenous Australians, particularly indigenous youth, is the key to overcoming disadvantage in other areas such as health, life expectancy, employment, living conditions and self-esteem”[1]

Kincoppal-Rose Bay promotes, embraces and values diversity in our own School community. The School seeks opportunities to welcome students, families and staff of diverse backgrounds and experiences and to deepen everyone’s understanding of those differences. This spirit underlies the commitment to Indigenous Education that has had a few beginnings at KRB and most recently underpinned the “Bowraville Project”.

In 2004 KRB was invited to St Mary's Primary School at Bowraville (99% of its students are indigenous) to begin a collaborative long term project. The “dialogue’ with the staff, parents and children of St Mary’s Primary School at Bowraville, what we called “Nullawilli” or sit down and listen” became the way of opportunity for sharing our plans, hopes and realities as the two school communities discovered ways to meet each other and make a difference. What has evolved is the development of a strong relationship between Kincoppal-Rose Bay and St Mary’s.

Both schools are aware that the majority of indigenous students who move to city schools come through personal contacts and it is important to know that they are willing and have family and community support. The KRB community has become a trusted partner in this opportunity to offer education into secondary level and beyond.

In 2006, two girls from St Mary’s came to KRB as boarders in Year 8. This coming Saturday night they will proudly graduate with their 2010 HSC Class. There are now 10 indigenous girls being educated at KRB- the majority from Bowraville with yet another enrolled for next year.

The Bowraville Project has 4 facets:

• Teacher / professional development and exchange
• Annual Holiday Camp
• Education opportunities for secondary education at KRB for St Mary's girls
• Building "The Kitchen- Heart of the School" at St Mary's Bowraville (pop. 2,286) is located on the north coast of NSW, inland from Nambucca Heads, about a forty minute drive south of Coffs Harbour. Despite its idyllic location it has been identified by the Jesuit Social Services review[2] in March 2004 as amongst the highest ranking postcode areas in NSW on the 13 indicators of social disadvantage including unemployment, crime, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy and child maltreatment and childhood injuries. I can personally attest to observing serious child health issues (malnutrition, tooth decay, scabies, head lice infestation, impetigo, staphylococcal skin infections etc) at the recent School holiday camp.

We have committed our KRB School Community (students, staff, parents, alumnae and friends) to all aspects of the "Bowraville Project" and this year we have been able to complete the supply of a commercial , fully stainless steel kitchen to the new school building that was opened in July

So WHY the focus on the Kitchen ?

This is really not a question for anyone who has attended one of the Annual Holiday Camps that have been held since 2005 (with 2 camps held in 2008 – one a Magis08 WYD “Experience”)

The children at St Mary's have a very high attendance rate at school due to the fact that they receive all the meals of the day there, beginning with breakfast each morning. The Kitchen is most importantly a hub for the Community as it now can offer opportunities for child and adult cooking classes, community meals and most importantly, fresh cooked meals for the children during Term time and over the Holiday Camp.

Each day of the Camp we prepare nutritious meals and the children are fed every hour and a half as they are during the school day. We endeavor to model good kitchen hygiene and food preparation and involve the children as much as we can in the preparation and delivery of the meals.

This year we had the great joy of inviting the whole community to a BBQ and the highlight were the hamburgers that they children had helped prepare. They discovered that not all hamburgers are from a packet or wrapper!.

In future camps we hope to engage the young Mums in cooking classes. St Mary’s is already beginning a programme of child health, hygiene and nutrition in conjunction with the starting of their Early Learning Centre within the beautiful new school in 2011.