Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting one of our great local schools on the north-west coast of Tasmania, the Penguin district school. I was there to meet with some very special young Tasmanians, who made the bold decision to step outside their Tasmanian lives and experience a slice of a very different sort of life—halfway across the globe—in Cambodia.

I was pleased to be able to contribute to the students' successful fundraising efforts to send 16 students overseas on the trip of a lifetime. The trip was taken as part of an elective subject called Third-World Classroom. This subject gave students an insight into the experiences of other young people—who have a very different experience of growing up from the one experienced by young Australians. Students saw so much in their 10-day trip, including Tuol Sleng prison and the Killing Fields, which still signposts the location of mass graves where more than one million people lost their lives under the Khmer Rouge regime. They also had the chance to visit the grand palace and the temples of Siem Reap.

The highlight of the trip for many of the students was three days spent in a village called Treak, just outside Siem Reap. This is a typical Cambodian village but is nothing like the villages we know in Australia. Penguin District School students quickly discovered how different village life is in Treak. Most people there are subsistence farmers or fishermen. Fifty per cent of adults are illiterate. There is no piped water. All the water comes from wells, with many families sharing those wells, and the water has to be boiled or filtered before it is safe to drink. Half the residents do not have a toilet and for those who do there is no sewerage system. There is no gas supply, no tarmacked roads and no phone system.

One third of families in Treak earn less than 40c a day and almost 30 families are classed as living in extreme poverty, which means they have no land, no jobs, no savings and no support from family members. Families struggle to pay for education for their young people, which puts them at great risk of continuing the cycle of poverty.

I am told the students did their school—and their country—proud during their time in the village. They made a great contribution as they set about helping to build roofs, put in bamboo supports and build walls for the village classrooms. The students were particularly pleased that they could purchase new whiteboards for the village. Of course, it is always worthwhile to go to new places and get exposure to new things, but what I learnt when I met these students was that they had gained something even more valuable: they had developed the vital qualities of respect, gratitude and empathy.

When I visited the students after they got home I was struck most by the fact that they had been able to step outside their own experience and put it in a wider global context. It is something many young people never get the chance to do. I asked them a couple of questions to get a better idea of what they had learnt and how it made them feel about their lives back home in Australia. I could try to paraphrase the responses, but I think they tell the story so much better than I could. Jayden Van Essen spoke of his shock. He said:

Life in Australia is so different and now I see why people say we have it so lucky. Being in Cambodia for weeks, I really noticed the stench off the streets and how it was really dirty, and comparing that to Australia, it is just so weird even comparing them. They truly are two separate countries unfortunately.

Jorji Walker also thought about the difference between Australian and Cambodian lives. She said:

The most important thing I learnt would have to be from the local people. I loved how they were so happy with their lives even with so little surrounding them in their homes, streets and even lives. It has made me realise how much we take for granted and how privileged we are to have the things we have.

Jorji noted the change in herself as a result of the experience. She said:

I'm seeing that I automatically stick up for human rights, people in third-world countries, poverty, racism et cetera. I find myself wanting to help EVERYONE in any possible way I can.

Bravo, Jorji. What great words. Nicholas Canales also came away with a great appreciation for his life in Australia. He said:

I began to see really how privileged I am to have the life, family, home and above all education I have here in Australia. Because of this I found myself working harder at school and not taking things for granted in the slightest way.

What a great thing to take away from his experience. Kate Hall had a similar perspective. She said:

It woke me up in a sense, opened my eyes to what was really happening around me. Life isn't always a pleasant ride, reaching the odd ups and downs but quickly finding a solution with the support of friends and family. Our interpretation is paradise compared to some of the lives lived over in places like Cambodia. Yet when I compare which is happier, the people that have nothing are the ones who come out on top because they have learnt the most important lesson of all and that is to live your life while you can no matter what situation you are in. So rise above the things that bring you down and write your own story, follow your own path and be what you want to be.

Kate also said:

All the children over in places like Cambodia dream of is to have a life like ours, to know that for sure they will come home to dinner on the table, to know the family is safe and sound. Yet we hardly think nothing of it; we couldn't even put it into perspective. We are same, we are all equal, yet we don't have the equal amount of luck. We have no control over were we are born or what the weather will be tomorrow but we have a choice in who we are and what difference we make in the world.

What wise words, Kate—this is someone who is about 15. I am sure she will go on to make a positive difference. Ruby Williams said the most important thing she learnt from the trip was that we are so unaware of the world around us. She said:

There's so much more than our first world problems; there's people out there with very little and they're happy; we need to learn from them. The trip definitely made me see my life in Australia differently. We are so fortunate and show little gratitude for what we have while others would give up everything to live the way we do.

I would also like to mention Tyson de Groot, who said he learnt 'how much we have in Australia compared to Cambodia and how many little things they have'.

You can see that these young Tasmanians did not just have a great time and exciting new experiences, they also got the opportunity to grow and develop wonderful qualities that will stand them in good stead as exemplary community members. The families around Penguin District School are not rich; in fact, many live on incomes that are well below the Australian national average. But these students certainly got a first-hand understanding of what a rich nation Australia is in comparison to so many other countries. They also learnt the invaluable truth that your attitude has a lot to do with how rich you really are.

Sadly, there are many in Australia who do not have the benefit of this experience. There are many here who would begrudge the poorest nations in the world the support that wealthy countries like Australia can provide. We all too often think about ourselves and, in doing so, fail to understand the suffering that so many others go through on a daily basis. The attitudes of these enlightened young people gave me real hope for the future—hope for a society that is driven by compassion rather than greed and hope for a country that will support measures to give generously to support projects in developing countries. These projects can cost relatively little for a wealthy nation like Australia, but they can make such a difference to the ability of developing countries to meet their basic needs and chart a path toward sustainability.

It is timely that I am discussing this on a night when we have learnt what the savage foreign aid cuts will mean to so many countries around the world. It saddens me greatly that a rich country like Australia seems unwilling to take its responsibility as one of the richest members of the global community to help other countries to prosper too. One of the things that the students got involved in when they returned to their school was transforming many of the students by allowing them to live examples of experiences that the kids in Cambodia had. One of the things was taking the chairs away for a whole day so that the students could experience what it was like for students in Cambodia. They also painted a number of poles in one of the classrooms. They painted them with all sorts of messages like: how many countries around the world live well below the poverty line? They did this with symbols, which meant that other students had to ask the question: what does that actually mean? They poured their experiences out across the school by involving the students in living the experiences they had, even though they were not able to go on the trip.

I would certainly like to give thanks to the students and the Penguin District School for sharing their stories with me. I would also like to thank the students—who are, as I said, all aged between 14 and 16—for the wealth of compassion that they have brought back.