As Chief Executive Officer of the Award in the ACT, I am very proud to give the group citation for these young people who have achieved the highest level of the Duke of Edinburghs Award Program. The Award is about challenge and providing opportunity to accept challenge. It encourages young people to set goals and achieve them. Along the way they learn about themselves and about qualities like responsibility, trust and the ability to plan and organise themselves. To Gain a Gold Award is quite a remarkable achievement. There are approximately 300 entrants to the Award at Bronze level each year in the ACT. This year there are 16 young people receiving their Gold Award, so we can appreciate how much stickability a Gold Award Recipient has to have. The Service component of the Gold Award this year has seen the service taking many forms throughout the community. Participants worked in various roles for The Smith Family and St Vincent de Paul; provided food for the homeless and worked with the elderly. They volunteered with Red Cross; in the Mater Neo Natal unit in Brisbane or made ocki dolls for premmie babies; they undertook additional duties in Army Cadets and Scouts ACT; they mentored and assisted their peers in their own time at school; Sunday School and with our own Award Program. And they went to help with the animals at the RSPCA and the National Zoo and Aquarium. For the Adventurous Journey section Gold Participants have a wide choice of how they will spend their minimum of three nights and four days fulfilling this requirement. There is a choice of three genres within the Adventurous Journey; Expeditioning by any means, Exploration or Other Adventurous Project. Close to home the beautiful Kosciusko National Park, was chosen for expeditions and a little further afield they hiked the Six Foot Trail; Murramarang National Park and Pigeon House Mountain; one travelled north to Singleton and others mounted an Emergency Response exercise to NT. Two took to the water and sailed the South passage from Bundaberg to Brisbane. Another went off shore north to Papua New Guinea to trek the Kokoda Track. There were two Other Adventurous Projects undertaken, the first a Conservation project in Ecuadorian Amazon and the other looked after a special religious object which had been travelling the world on its Journey for a project titled “The Return to Rome of the Christian Icon Our Lady Seat of Wisdom”. The Skill Section of the Award Program enables diverse selection with over 200 skills listed as being appropriate to the criteria. Gold Participants often find more outside that list. The 2013 recipients chose to hone their musical expertise on Bassoon, Flute, Guitar, and Piano, undertake debating and public speaking; practice the study of martial arts and cake decorating and five learnt to drive a motor vehicle. Involvement in some form of physical activity is essential for well being and participants are required to select an activity and follow it regularly over a set period of time. For Physical Recreation the Participants played ball sports such as netball, touch football, hockey and soccer. They managed personal fitness programs with gym and body dynamics, martial arts and yoga. There was swimming and Latin Dancing. Lastly, one that we used to see a lot of but not for a while, so pleased to see it back on the list again, and that is Dragon Boating. The Residential section requires Gold Participants to spend four nights and five days away from their normal peers, contributing to the community in which they find themselves. The 2013 recipients have the most diverse and interesting Residentials that I have seen in my 18 years with the Award. We begin with the World Vision Trek for Trafficking aimed to assist in preventing child labor. Representing Australia at the International Olympiad for Geography in Kyoto, Japan and winning a Gold medal in the process. Three young people put themselves out there to assist, lead and work hard for St Vincent de Paul and other Christian Youth Camps There was a conservation project for the sustainable rebuilding of a coral reef in Bali Two went on a Personal Training course that covered England and Wales Another assisted at a leadership management Course named “Blazing Swords” Volunteering as an English Teacher took one participant to Warsaw in Poland A musician travelled to and took part in an extraordinary Music Camp Whilst a study of the European battlefields of Europe included France, Belgium and Germany Travelling with the Australian Catholic University for Conference to the “Red Centre” And the opposite in temperature to that, a project on Panda Conservation And there is “The Long Trip” an epic journey of the Marist Merici group into the outback past Cobar in NSW for which this year, our erstwhile Director Antony Ladomirski drove the bus. With all this life experience to their credit, Captain Tongs may I present to you the ACT Gold Award Recipients for the year 2013. Michelle Balfour, Merici College & ACT Open Award Centre Amanda Chiu, Department of Human Services Alyce Davern, Department of Human Services Alice De Marchi ,Department of Human Services Alison Fleming, Merici College Jenna Freeman, Queensland State Award Office Stephanie Freeman, Queensland State Award Office Sean Gallagher, Army Cadets and ACT Open Award Centre Elmie Janse van Rensburg, Burgmann Anglican School Amy Kosa, Radford College & Burgmann Anglican School Louise Kristensen, ACT Open Award Centre Sarah Naco, Canberra Girls Grammar School Lucian Stellati, Radford College Monique Strelnikow, Trinity Christian College Christine Tesch, ACT Open Award Centre Brittany Woodward, Radford College & Burgmann Anglican School
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 23:39:12 +0000
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