Written by
Loyola College Committee
From the Intercultural Captain:
Hello parents, staff, students and the wider College community.
Along with Ms Bryans and my vice-captain Natshali Fernando, we hosted our annual Harmony Week from the 17th to the 21st of March. This year for Harmony Week the newly established Harmony Hub team came up with the theme of “Hope in Harmony”. This theme took inspiration from our wider College theme this year of “Companions in Hope”. We believe that now, more than ever, hope is a powerful concept in a time where our world is facing conflicts and overwhelming divisions. As young people, we can draw strength from hope and see it as a wish, and a motivation to create a more peaceful and united future.
Our week began in our Monday extended mentor, as students participated in a cultural survey that was later used to create a world map, featuring all the different countries our Loyola students are from. Mentors also created their own murals, a creative representation of the diversity in their mentor – with healthy competition of course! Congratulations to mentor MCMS for their fantastic effort. This theme of competitiveness continued to Wednesday, as Natshali and the library staff hosted a cultural kahoot featuring quiz questions on country flags, traditions and history, with student Nicholas Nguyen (8AYCA) taking out the win! Thursday featured our Harmony Day Assembly; the tone was set from the start with a beautiful rendition of “We are One” which was specially rehearsed by our choir. We were also delighted to welcome Debora Zilberstein-Reed, our guest speaker for the assembly, who shared a thought-provoking and vulnerable presentation of her family’s history in the Holocaust, and her father’s brave actions that led to his survival. She provided an important reminder in these challenging times of what can occur when we lose sight of our humanity, and that being passive in our responses to injustice can be just as damaging as perpetrating it. Our assembly then continued with cultural performances – a traditional Noh theatre dance from our year 8 students as well as Olivia Juka, Isabel Juka and Maja Romic who performed on behalf of their Croatian singing group “Folklorna Grupa Mladi Hrvati”! Finally, our week was wrapped up on Friday with a casual clothes day and lunchtime activities at the Two Wolves Hub including food trucks, music and cultural craft activities organised by Ms Bryans and the Harmony Hub.
Thank you everyone for an amazing week!
Grace Warren (12CJEM)
2025 Intercultural Captain
From the Sustainability Captain:
Welcome to our sustainability for 2025.
Along with the help of my vice-captain Jonathan Fedele and teacher co-ordinator Ms Oktay, we have heaps of fun events planned for this year!
Our first event is Sustainability Week running on the 24th until the 28th of March, where we aim to raise awareness to more sustainable living practices and the preservation of our beautiful world. On Monday, we have “Earth hour” during period 5, where we encourage all teachers to run their lessons without the projectors or laptops and to open the blinds and use natural light as a substitute to electricity. On Tuesday at lunch, we’re running a beeswax wrap making class in the Two Wolves Hub, beeswax wraps make great alternatives to plastic wrap which we unfortunately often see littered around the yard and making their way into the drains. We’ll be using second hand 100% cotton material and beeswax which is completely food safe, and the wraps can be reused by gently washing them with cold water. On Wednesday at lunch a pot painting activity where students will be drawing on recycled food tin cans with Posca paint markers and planting little seeds. Around only 9% of the items we put in the recycling actually gets recycled, so if we can find ways to repurpose them instead and prevent more waste from being made, like buying new pots to paint, we’re doing much better for our Earth. Lastly, on Thursday and Friday at lunch there’ll be a screening of Wall-E in the theatrette with popcorn as well!
There’s a bunch of activities running so even if you can’t make it to all of them bring your friends along to the ones you can!
Always remember that doing a little is better than doing nothing. If you can purposefully do 1 thing each day to lessen your impact on the earth, it all adds up to make positive change. If we get everybody to do something small the impact becomes large. “It won’t make any difference if it’s just me”, is a common misconception that everyone has found themselves thinking. We must stop perpetuating this harmful belief as if we believe collectively that a small act can help, we can make a big difference together.
Some things you can do today to be kinder to our shared home are:
- Take a shorter shower than usual
- Only wash your clothes if they need to be washed and air dry them instead of running the dryer
- Use a container to store your food instead of single use plastic wrap or takeaway containers
- Take public transport instead of driving
- Collect and bury your vegetable/fruit scraps in the garden or put them in the green bin
Maya Ilievski (12ATMV)
2025 Sustainability Captain
Student of the Fortnight
The student of the fortnight, Grace and I have nominated is…
Charli Fronda (10MYKS)
For enthusiastically showing up to meetings and making our beautiful sustainability posters even on short notice. Charli is an amazing drawer and is always proactive within emailing the club to help out.
