Student Forum - Against Gendered Violence

It was a privilege and inspiration seeing students from across Ballarat come together to share their views and lend their voices to the serious issue of gendered violence. In coming together, they expressed their desire to contribute to action. They showed, that despite difficult and confronting issues, they are hope-filled young people who are committed to finding a better way.

They showed courageous leadership.

Paris and Caleb represented Damascus College at the forum and shared the following insights.

On Tuesday the 11^th of June Caleb and I were invited to a Gendered Violence seminar ran by Phoenix College. All the secondary schools were invited to join and talk about this prevalent issue in our society. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet new, like-minded people and talk about how we can do better as individuals, school groups and ultimately Ballarat as a whole.

We all came up with different ideas on how our schools can do better in the future and we were able to present these ideas to people from the government, Women’s Grampian Health, the Ballarat tech school,l among many others. It was wonderful being able to express our ideas to a panel of people who work for this change in the Ballarat region.

– Paris Govan

To be invited along to and involved with such a powerful event in Ballarat was truly insightful, and the position that I was placed in where I could speak on behalf of Damascus in front of esteemed members of the Ballarat community, including the Mayor, is an experience I will never forget.

I can’t lie, I was extremely nervous to arrive at the venue, not knowing what to expect was daunting. I soon came to realise how privileged I was to be in my position being able to speak to and more importantly listen to other leaders in my community about how to progress in our community from undeniably horrific events in Ballarat. We finished the day with writing a pledge for our school, one that must not be disregarded. Thank you.

– Caleb Smith

The Pledge

We pledge to promote the use of supportive and uplifting language, and to call out harmful and degrading language.

We commit to enforcing and upholding safe and respectful learning and social environments throughout the college and wider community, developing, and maintaining a positive school culture.

We will ensure that being a member of Damascus means we will not let poor behaviour slide.

This is not a one -off

It’s not weak to speak.