Bushfire message spread to the world
STUDENTS and teachers from Leongatha Primary School attended a week-long Natural Disaster Youth Summit in Niigata, Japan recently.
Students Molly-Mae Nicols, Courtney Embury, Jacob Stewart and Josh Allen, and teachers Megan Holland and Leonnie McCluskey were invited to attend the summit as a result of an earlier global project the school had been involved with, Water is Life.
The school was the only school from Australia invited to the summit.
This year, more than 50 students from China, Taiwan, India, Turkey, Indonesia, Iran, Columbia, America, Mongolia, Japan and Australia came together to discuss natural disasters that affect communities, how people can reduce the risks of these natural disasters happening, what they can do when they do occur and how can they reconstruct after they have occurred.
The topic for discussion at the summit was ‘Disaster Reduction, Mitigation and Reconstruction’ in towns. The aim was to solve abnormal weather problems by global collaboration.
Leongatha Primary students chose ‘bushfires’ as their natural disaster. They gave a presentation at the summit outlining what a bushfire looks like, how it has affected Victoria in the past, when bushfires have occurred, how they can be prevented and what has happened as a direct result from a bushfire, such as clean-up, restoration and aftermath.
Other natural disasters discussed at the summit included earthquakes, floods and tornadoes.
Representatives from each country performed a cultural performance at a gala dinner in front of an audience of more than a hundred people.
The Australian group sang Waltzing Matilda and were taught to play a traditional Japanese instrument, the Taisho-Koto, and performed, en masse, at the Concert Hall in Niigata.
At the end of the summit, a student from each country gathered to make the NDYS2016 Declaration.
The declaration statement was adopted at the closing ceremony and announced by the each representative in his or her own language.
Courtney Embury read the declaration for Australia: “To kindle the passion within, students must take responsibility for the world is in their hands.”
International adventure: Leongatha Primary School students met with children from other countries while in Japan recently. Back, from left, Jacob, Josh, Courtney, Sara (Iran), Sydney (America), Courtney and Rojen (Iran), and front, Kevin (China).
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Posted by Tayla Kershaw on Aug 30 2016. Filed under Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
