COLLEGE EVANGELISATION PLAN

The College motto: Semper Superne Nitens is translated as "Always Striving Upwards” which is expanded to "Always Striving Upwards ... to You Our God." During the period 2007 – 2010, Sacred Heart College Evangelisation Plan will introduce or continue to develop a wide range of evangelisation activities for staff and students.

Evangelisation Plan 2007 - 2010

COLLEGE MORNING MASSES

Morning Mass is held in our Chapel and commences at 8:15 every school morning Tuesdays to Fridays. Different classes are given the responsibility to organise these masses on a roster basis but all in the Sacred Heart Community (staff, students, parents and families) are very welcome to attend all or any of these masses.

YOUNG VINNIES

Like all St Vincent de Paul societies throughout the world, the mission of Young Vinnies at Sacred Heart College is to help those in need. We continue to grow in our mission with the help of our members, our teachers and other volunteers, and our donors, the families in our school.

Young Vinnies is a group where people with commitment and ideas are always welcome. Our members are energetic, idealistic and imaginative. We are concerned about poverty and injustice, and are anxious to become involved both in short-term alleviation and long-term answers. Young Vinnies is a real agent of social change and gives the opportunity for people with a social conscience a means to express it, and to give something back to their community.

Young Vinnies at Sacred Heart is vibrant and growing. This year has been a rewarding and exciting year for the Young Vinnies group; we have taken on some new ventures and continued with programs established previously. This year we are focusing strongly on getting out into the community.

We started off the year by fundraising for Caritas Australia by selling raffle tickets for an Easter Appeal, for which the Year Eights kindly donated many Easter eggs. We distributed some of these at Trinity Retirement Village and travelled to the cancer ward at Princess Margaret Hospital to give Easter eggs to the patients and their families.

Term two was a term full of ideas and planning as well as selling soup at our soup kitchen and collecting clothes through the Winter Clothing Appeal, for people who would need them for the winter months.

Also during this term, a group of Year Tens took part in the annual Winter Sleepout. They braved the cold, wet weather to sleep outdoors, the objective being to gain an insight into what it might be like to be homeless.

In term three we have visited the senior ladies at Mercyville Retirement Home establishing friendships and nurturing them on other visits. We have started the process of gathering information from them so as to put it in a book form which we will present to them at the end of the year. We will conduct a major fundraising venture, the sausage sizzle at Bunnings in Hillarys. The proceeds from this and the other fundraising activities carried out during the year will finance the annual “Fun Day Out”. We will host a number of young people who will spend a Saturday in September with us. Each child will be given a student buddy for a day of fun! This should prove to be a rewarding experience for all of those involved. After a day such as this, we appreciate how well off we really are and how tough some people do it.

A recent initiative has been the establishment of the “Assist a Student” programme. All Year Ten Form classes are contributing to the St Vincent de Paul chapter in Manila in the Philippines which will use this money to help finance the education of a number of young children there. These children would otherwise be denied a chance to go to school because of the very poor conditions in which they live.

We will end the year by collecting donated food for the Christmas appeal which will be distributed to needy families in the area through the local parish St Vincent de Paul groups.

We challenge you to turn your social concern into 'Action'. Direct your energy, your youthful enthusiasm, your creativity but most of all your love for your neighbour into positive action. Being a member of Young Vinnies makes you realise you have responsibilities to help those who don’t have the necessities. It gives you a whole new perspective on life!

VIETNAM

Sacred Heart College was established by the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions but these days the Sisters no longer teach or play an active role in the administration of the College. As such our students very rarely have contact with our founding Order.

It is one of the goals of the College to continue to support the Sisters and provide an opportunity for students to become involved in, and to see first-hand, their missionary work. Our students need interaction with the Sisters and to see their work so as to assist them in living the faith.

What has emerged is the College’s ‘Vietnam Mission’, first run in 2004. The students experience an immersion in another culture, a culture radically different to their own, through which they may gain better understanding of themselves and of the people of Vietnam.

The students who have become a part of the ‘Vietnam Mission’ are committed people with youthful enthusiasm who are energetic, idealistic and imaginative. They are concerned about poverty and justice issues, and are anxious to become involved both in short-term alleviation and long-term answers to these problems. The ‘Vietnam Mission’ allows them to turn their social concern into ‘positive action’ and gives them a means to express their social conscience; to give something to another community of underprivileged people. A yearlong process of fundraising, raising awareness in the local community of the Mission and instruction in evangelisation and missionary work culminates in two weeks working with the sisters in Vietnam.

In the October school holidays, a group of Year 11 students and staff will visit the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions in Vietnam. The students will gain an experience of living and working in another culture and with people who are disadvantaged - the poor, the marginalised, orphans and street people. The students will be working daily with the sisters and experiencing many of the hard times, as well as the joys of helping those less fortunate than themselves. Hopefully, they will return enriched in their faith and able to see what Jesus meant when he told those who follow him to go out and bring the good news to others.

By being involved in the ‘Vietnam Mission’ and seeing the way in which the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions live their lives, the students learn a very important lesson from them. It is hoped that the Sisters will inspire the students and that they will become important role models influencing the way these children live their lives.