At least 20,000 students have participated in D4D to date. Schools taking on the challenge are made up of all school sectors Catholic, Independent and Government Schools. It has become an important tool for building awareness and connection to this issue in the school sector.
See below for some individual action stories!
All Saints College, St Peter’s Campus Maitland
200 students gave up power and furniture and sat in the rain, using silence to draw attention to the plight of the marginalised. The students from year 7 to 10 at All Saints College St Peter’s campus in Maitland participated yesterday in the school’s 2013 Social Justice Awareness Day.
San Clemente High School
Sixty students voluntarily spent their lunchtime in the school library as part of the school’s participation in the Detention 4 Detention campaign, which aims to end child immigration detention. The year 7 to 10 students spent the 40 minutes creating video and written messages of hope for child detainees.
Mt Alvernia College
Mt Alvernia Deputy principal Alison Stone said the school would encourage about 100 of the girls’ school’s students to participate in its Detention for Detention program, in which Year 10 students may volunteer to spend 16 minutes of their lunch break locked behind bars in a public place at the school.
Our Lady’s College
On Wednesday 7th August over 60 students and staff from Our Lady’s College gathered in the drama room for ‘detention for detention’. During the voluntary detention students made paper boats and wrote messages of hope and solidarity. This action followed a very powerful presentation during a full school assembly during which the Mission Committee anonymously shared the real life stories of students from within our own community who are refugees. The committee also busted a number of the myths that we are constantly bombarded with by the media and our politicians.
Ursula Frayne Catholic College YCS
At the beginning of June Ursula Frayne Catholic College’s YCS group participated in End Child Detention Australia’s Detention4Detention. The student run group organised the lunch time detention and had students from Year 7-12 congregate to send messages of hope to children in detention. 150 students participated from the College and were able to create awareness about children their age being detained by their own government.
Edmund Rice Schools Across Australia
On Thursday May 2, over 3000 students and staff from 10 Edmund Rice Education Australia schools around Australia took a voluntary lunchtime detention to stand in solidarity with the 1,953 children who are currently in immigration detention in Australia. Students experienced having their voices silenced, and hands tied, and sent a message to children in detention that they are not alone, and that they are welcome in our country. Students then signed our own ERA for Change petition calling on the government to end mandatory detention for asylum seeker children. We hope not only to encourage our leaders to treat asylum seekers with greater compassion, but also to change the hearts of those within the general public who support the forced detention of those who have been forced to flee their own homes
