In the busy life of the Prime Minister, the creative action of some students from St Peter’s Catholic College, Tuggerah, in New South Wales recently evoked a personal response from him.

Students in the Social Justice Group wanted to get their message across about the need for Australia to give more and better aid in order to fulfill its commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. Instead of writing a letter to Kevin Rudd, they made a quilt. On the quilt they transferred their letter with their main message: Even though these are tough times economically, Australia should give its fair share of aid. Currently it only gives 0.27%, half of what it promised in 2000 in order to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Please Mr. Rudd, give more and better aid to the world’s poor. They gathered other young supporters who signed squares that were then sewn together to make the quilt.

They contacted their local member for the federal seat of Dobell, Craig Thomson, who was interested enough to come to the school. Two local newspapers, The Central Coast Advocate and The Sun, turned up for a photo shoot of him accepting the quilt petition.

He returned to St Peters with a photo of himself presenting Prime Minister Rudd with the quilt. He brought a letter from the Prime Minister congratulating the students on their initiative and creativity in bringing the issue to his attention.

This originated from the Broken Bay Diocesan Year Ten Social Justice Day in 2008, an annual event which is part of the Religious Education curriculum. Students got together in their school groups with their teachers and came up with the idea that evolved into the quilt petition.

It shows what enthusiastic young people can do with the support of a dedicated teacher and principal. This August will be the 10th Year 10 Social Justice Day which involves about 300 students from Catholic and State High schools from across the Diocese of Broken Bay. One of the students who participated in the very first Social Justice Day is now a teacher who brings a group of students from his school. What an example of the lines from the famous quote by Archbishop Oscar Romero “This is what we are about. We plant seeds that one day will grow.”

Anne Lanyon has co-ordinated the Broken Bay Social Justice Day since its inception as an initiative for the 2000 Jubilee Year.