Trinity’s Outreach Society promotes and facilitates social justice initiatives within the College and the wider community. The society tries to show residents that there are many different ways they can give back to their community.
Trinity students are helping create positive changes at organisations such as The Smith Family, Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience, The River Nile Learning Centre for Africa Refugee Women, the Tabitha Foundation, Parkville Youth Justice Centre and Teachabout.
Trinity students volunteer in Samoa
As a result of his Samoan heritage, Taylor Callaghan (3rd year Environments) is aware of the situation of many students in Samoa and wanted to make a difference. In 2012, Taylor and
a small group of Trinity students collaborated to improve opportunities available for students in Samoa to undertake tertiary education.
With this aim, they founded Project Poutasi, a student-run volunteer initiative supporting Poutasi, a low socio-economic village devastated by the 2009 Samoan tsunami.
Throughout 2012 and 2013, the campaign to increase awareness and raise money to support school-aged students in the village grew as more Trinity students joined the cause.
By developing scholarship linkages with schools and universities in the region, Project Poutasi secured a grant from The University of Melbourne that enabled one student from the local school in
Poutasi to attend university in Samoa. The group aims to raise further funds to provide opportunities to more Samoan students.
In September 2013, 10 students and tutors travelled to Poutasi to offer classroom support and deliver desperately needed learning materials.
‘Much of the infrastructure and materials of the local school were lost in the 2009 tsunami. Our priorities include providing Samoa–English dictionaries, as students require English proficiency for their exams,’ said Kate Crowhurst (Resident Tutor).
‘We used reading comprehension books to teach English, as well as holding science and commerce classes. The students seemed to be having the time of their lives. They were enthusiastic, produced great results and were amazing fun to work with.’
‘Outside of school, Project Poutasi provided extra tutoring sessions for the Year 12 and 13 students approaching final exams. We also reorganised the school library so that appropriate English books and reading comprehension
sets were accessible to students,’ said Jessica Bradford (3rd year Arts).
‘We attended the Samoa Victim Support Group, a shelter for young survivors of crime, where we interacted and played games with children who have grown up with
serious disadvantage.’
‘The trip was fantastic. We established friendships with the people of Poutasi, and hope that with these connections we can revise the project to make it sustainable and improve access to tertiary education in Samoa.’
