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Never too young to make a difference

30 July 2019

Topics: "Ration Challenge" refugees

For the second year in a row, thousands of passionate students and teachers across the country took up the schools version of the Ration Challenge (a three or five day version of the challenge with educational resources and lesson plans).

Video:
Jean and Ella from Fort St High in Sydney stand with a ration pack. Jean says, “I’ll never fully experience all that refugees go through, but this small act helped me understand just one part of the struggle.”

Students said that, while it was tough, taking the challenge empowered them to raise their voice on an issue they care about and make a real difference to people’s lives.

The Ration Challenge is a wake-up call – it’s one small thing you can do that can help widen your perspective and create meaningful conversations with your parents, friends, grandparents and the wider community.
Jemima, Head Girl at Oxley College
As well as developing empathy for others, the challenge helps to engage students to learn and talk about global issues
The Ration Challenge is a wonderful way for children to learn about the wider world. It pushes kids out of their comfort zone and also brings together a real sense of community as students share their Challenge with those around them.
Chris Goodman, school teacher, Oakhill College

Video:
Jemima stands with the message she wrote to a student in Jordan, “Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we live in the same world. Yours and mine seem so different – through both distance and experience. But the thing is we do live in the same world – you laugh like me, you smile like me and you cry like me. And we both share one thing – hope. We care and we are trying to make change.”

Video:
Sahib and Omar, best friends, smile outside their apartment block in Talbiah refugee camp on the outskirts of Amman, Jordan. They are two Syrian children being supported with food rations and education thanks to funds raised through the challenge.

About Ration Challenge for schools 

The Ration Challenge schools program is a fundraising campaign where students and teachers eat the same rations as a Syrian refugee during Refugee Week in June – just a small amount of rice, flour, lentils, chickpeas, beans, fish and oil – and get sponsored to do it.

By putting themselves in the shoes of a refugee, students learn learn more about the refugee struggle and feel empowered to make a difference in the world.

The money they raise provides food, medicine and education for refugees; and support other communities around the world threatened by conflict and disaster.

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