Remar Blue Solidarity Camp
Remar seeks to form Christian leaders who are prepared to stand in solidarity with those experiencing disadvantage and injustice, and who are motivated to take action.
To this end, 21 Year 11 Remar Blue rowers (students) embarked on a week-long Solidarity Camp. As one student explains: “During the camp I learnt more about solidarity. Solidarity is not only giving out a hand to help others but to experience life with others, side by side. Having compassion and serving others.”
The Remar Blue Solidarity camp ran from Wednesday 28 August to Tuesday 3 September in Mullewa, Western Australia, a small farming town 470km North-East of Perth. Following preparation sessions, the students lived and worked alongside the community of Mullewa, where they had a packed itinerary that involved various services to the Mullewa community including helping to host their annual Agriculture and Wildflower Shows, working with the students at Our Lady of Mount Carmel primary school and hosting their school disco.
The Remar students slept on the floor of the school, cooked their own meals and worked as a group to provide each service to the community all of which helped to deepen their experience of communal living and form deeper relationships with each other.
“I learnt that service is necessary for any community to work and that good leaders aren’t necessarily those who delegate the work, but those who just help to get it done. I also gained a sense of community and family within my own caravel.” (Reflection from a student).
Ultimately, the camp was successful in helping the rowers understand solidarity through lived experience and helping them to realise that they have the capacity to be the ‘hands and feet of Christ’.
A huge thank you goes out to Miss Genna Spadaccini (Blue Helm), Miss Jamie Pedler, Mr Matthew Wilson and Br Paul Murphy for giving up their time to accompany our students on this special journey. We also thank Mrs Jill Hollands (Principal of Our Lady of Mt Carmel, Mullewa) and the Mullewa community for their hospitality and hosting our students during their time away.