 Simply
Sharing Week |
Issue 135 |
Simply Sharing Hope
Just to the north east of Australia's Queensland coast, and to the east of Papua New Guinea, is a group of about 1000 islands called the Solomon Islands. They are our neighbours. Australia has a reputation for helping out our neighbours when they are in trouble. When the tsunami hit our neighbours just over a year ago, we reached out as good neighbours do and lent a helping hand.
When the Solomon Islands was in danger of breaking into civil war, Australia, along with our other neighbours, got together to help bring order back to country. There is another opportunity for Australia to be good neighbours and help the Solomon Islands overcome a serious health crisis. This is like a silent tsunami, devastating our neighbours. As the richest country in the region we are perfectly placed to reach out and give our neighbour a hand.
Just recently, more troops were sent to the Solomon Islands to help local police to bring order to the country after the recent elections. Lives were in danger. This decision was made quickly and action taken without delay.
In many villages throughout the country, lives are also in danger, not because of fighting but rather due to lack of access to clean water as well as the danger of preventable diseases. We as neighbours have the opportunity to help improve the health of Solomon Islanders. We can support the work of community workers like Beverley who have undergone special training to improve the health of people in villages like Fera Kabi Kabi. Many of the children of the village were sick. Beverley worked with the villagers on ways that they could improve the health of the children. They worked together to bring in clean water, they built toilets, they planted gardens and they built fences to keep out the wild animals that carried disease.
Now the villagers are much healthier. Beverley's training as a Community Health Trainer cost $140. This is a very small price to pay so that our neighbours and their kids will feel well more often. When you feel well you can more easily feel hopeful about the future, about work and about education.
In July 2003, Australia and other neighbouring Pacific countries sent troops to the Solomon Islands to restore peace and order to the country after several years of violence and virtual civil war. Many people had been forced to leave their homes and many people were killed. Many people who had witnessed the violence were traumatised and found it very difficult to get their lives back on track after the violence stopped. Children especially, were very traumatised and needed help to deal with the horrors that they witnessed.
As part of the healing process after the fighting, there is a need to bring peace to individuals so that they can move on with their lives. Part of the community health program for the Solomon Islands is the training of trauma counsellors who come from all over the Islands and return to their villages to work with people who witnessed terrible violence to friends or family. Children and young people are especially affected by trauma.
Martha, the coordinator of the Trauma Counselling Program sums up the mental health benefits of her program: "We won't be able to achieve complete reconciliation until there is healing. When people's minds are healed, they can move on and live their lives again. " Just $295 will allow a Trauma Support Worker to receive ongoing training in trauma rehabilitation in the Solomon Islands.
Would a good neighbour watch and do nothing to help bring hope to their neighbours? Wouldn't a good neighbour share what they had with their neighbours who had been through a rough time? As good neighbours we feel for the Solomon Islanders. We see their need for improved health and a better quality of life. We are aware that our quality of life in Australia is the highest in the region and we have much to share with our neighbours.
We take the opportunity during Simply Sharing Week to reflect on what it means to be a good neighbour and what it means to have good health:
After all,
without healthy parents, there is no one to
raise healthy children,
without
healthy students, there is no education,
without healthy workers,
there is no workforce,
and without healthy babies, we all
lose a part of the future. - Simply Sharing Week kit
Sharing what we have so that others can have good health means sharing hope for a better future.
Simply Sharing Week is a joint program of Caritas Australia and Christian World Services. It is held from May 14-21.
PDH/PE
1) Brainstorm what is meant by good health. Compare
your definition of health at
www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/globaled/go/
cache/offonce/pid/18;jsessionid=
39ABD02738C2C61C71F98C093009835B
2) Make a list in small groups of all the things that you are unable to do if you are unwell for long periods. Combine the lists and prioritise the five most serious limitations to your life and to the lives of your families.
3) Research the main causes of illness in Australia. Go to
www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Productsby
Topic/2093DA6935DB138FCA2568A9001393C9?
OpenDocument to
help you.
4) Research what the main causes of illness are in the Solomon Islands.
Go to www.mja.com.au/public/issues/181_11_061204/
sch10341_fm.html and
scroll down to the table that lists all the admissions to a regional
hospital in 2002 - 2003 to help you.
5) How do the two lists compare? Make a list of the reasons for the differences.
6) Read the following quote:
After all,
without healthy parents, there is no one to
raise healthy children ,
without healthy students, there is
no education,
without healthy workers, there is no workforce,
and without
healthy babies, we all lose a part of the future. - Simply
Sharing Week kit
Explain in your own words how bad health can have a chain reaction effect on the life of a person, their family and their community.
7) What is trauma? What are the psychological effects of trauma? What
are some of the treatments for trauma? Go to www.headroom.net.au/lounge/frame
jamming.html?trauma_events.html~lounge to
assist in your research.
8) How would the people of the Solomon Islands have been affected by experiencing and witnessing war and violence?
9) Go to www.positivenegative.ne+t.au/schoolresources.pdf to access a series of lessons focusing on the problem of HIV/ AIDS in our Asia-Pacific region. There are photos to accompany this program atwww.positivenegative.net.au/photos/
photos_picone.asp
HSIE/SOSE
1) Go to www.abc.net.au/ra/news/maps/
SOLOMONISLANDS.htm and
answer the following:
a) Where are the Solomons situated in relation to Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand?
b) List the main Islands of the Solomons . What is the capital city of the Solomon Islands? On which island is it located?
c) What is the closest neighbouring country?
2) Go to www.simplysharingweek.org.au/ssw/
materials/SSW_Information.pdf and www.ausaid.gov.au/country/
country.cfm?CountryId=16 to
research the country . Prepare a profile including population, area,
how people live, particular problems in health, other interesting facts.
3) Go to www.mja.com.au/public/issues/181_11_
061204/sch10341_fm.html and
read the article. Answer the following:
a) How did Rosalie Schultz end up in the Solomon Islands?
b) What picture does she give of life in the Solomons?
c) What were some of the problems she encountered?
d) How did people get to health clinics? How long might that take them?
4) Go to www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/
SKAR-647H8E?OpenDocument and
find out what Australia's aid program is focusing on in the Solomons.
Make a list of the aims of the program and the amount of money being
spent. How much is going to health?
Go to www.ausaid.gov.au/hottopics/
solomon/ramsi_images.cfm to
see pictures of projects supported by the Australian government.
5) Go to www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/
globaled/go/pid/143 Break
up the class into 6 groups. Each group prepares a presentation to the
rest of the class based on the headings of the article: At a glance,
Land, People etc.
6) Go to www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/globaled/go/
cache/offonce/pid/18;jsessionid=39ABD02738C2
C61C71F98C093009835B and
make a list of all the major health challenges in the world and how the
world , including Australia , is trying to respond to these problems.
mdgs/index_frameset.html to research the Millennium Development Goals related to health. How will improvements in health lead to less poverty in our world?
Geography
1) Illustrate the way resources are distributed in our world with lollies or something similar. Distribute them so that most get very little and a few students get a lot. Do not explain what you are doing. Once the lollies have been (unfairly) distributed, there could be a debriefing afterwards asking students to comment on how they felt about the way the lollies were distributed, whether they felt it was fair, how they reacted if they got a lot e.g. did they share? If not why not? Were those with few lollies more or less likely to share?
2) In light of the following quote, what does it mean when the Simply Sharing Week motto is to: live simply so that others may simply live. " If all the food produced worldwide w as distributed equally, every person would be able to consume 2,760 calories a day (hunger is defined as consuming fewer than 1,960 calories a day)".Science
Research an infectious disease that is common in the Solomon Islands like Malaria.
Focus questions:
- What is the nature of the disease (bacterial, viral, parasitic, etc)
- What causes the disease? How do you catch it?
- What are the symptoms?
- Can it be fatal?
- What are the treatments?
- Can it be prevented? How?
- How effective are the various responses to the disease?
Go to www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/
globaled/go/pid/2043 for
information on Vector -borne diseases like Malaria
ssw/materials.htm
1) Access the Simply Sharing Week materials at
www.simplysharingweek.org.au/ssw/index.htm
2) This kit includes a prayer service, information on the Solomon Islands, information on the Millennium Development Goals, information on Australia's aid effort, fundraising ideas, stories suitable for primary and secondary students as well as teaching activities and ideas for dramatic presentations of the issues. There is a PowerPoint presentation that you can download as well.
3) For ideas to promote Simply Sharing Week as well as an order form
for resources go to www.simplysharingweek.org.au/ssw/materials/
SSW_FundraisingIdeas.pdf
4) Download a flyer to advertise Simply Sharing Week at
www.ncca.org.au/__data/page/2172/P4P_
SSW_FLYER.pdf
5) For more information or resources, contact Kaylea Fearn on (03) 9650 6811, email kfearn@ncca.org.au or write to Simply Sharing Week, Level 4, 306 Little Collins Street Melbourne Victoria 3000.
6) The government is changing the way asylum seekers will be assessed
as to whether they are refugees or not. This means that they will be
processed outside of Australia in places like Nauru and Manus Island.
This will mean that children could again be locked up in camps for
years while their claims are assessed. Go to www.getup.org.au/campaign.asp?
campaign_id=30 or
to
www.amnesty.org.au/home/spotlights/take_
action_now_to_oppose_changes_to_refugee_policy to
take action on this issue.
7) Caritas Australia together with the Aboriginal Support Team of the Catholic Education Office, Perth will be hosting a Just Leadership day in Perth for senior secondary students on May 10. The theme for the day is reconciliation. This will be followed by an event planned in Perth for May 29 by the Aboriginal Education Team, Clontarf College and Caritas Australia which involves a Walk around Lake Monger followed by Activity Stations. For further information please contact Janeen Murphy on 0439 395 657.
8) Go to www.socialjustice.catholic.org.au/
briefing/current.pdf to
view social justice events taking place near you during the month of
May.
9) Organise a guest speaker to speak about Simply Sharing Week and the projects it supports in the Solomon Islands. Contact Kaylea Fearn on Ph: (03) 9650 6811, Email: kfearn@ncca.org.au
10) Read what religious leaders are saying about the latest troubles in the Solomons at www.cathnews.com/news/604/135.php