Rising Generations impress.

Today I was fortunate to attend a leadership afternoon with our Yr Seven students. It was run by a not for profit organisation called Rising Generations. Their CEO, 25 yr old Bec Heinrich and her colleague, Bec Donders, kept our Yr 7 cohort totally engaged for three hours with a variety of team building activities. It was an inspirational afternoon and far exceeded the expectations of my students who had envisaged an afternoon of being spoken (lectured!) to.

Bothe Becs were very impressive. Holding a large audience’s attention for a long period is a hard call in anyone’s book, and they did it with apparant ease. On their website they say they are committed to;

Developing leaders who actualise their own potential to serve others and make a difference in their school and community

Building vibrant and positive school and work communities

Encouraging and empowering Australia’s young people!

These ideals fit very well with the guiding values of Learning, Courage, Integrity, Excellence and Leadership through Service that are the cornerstone of Toorak College, the school I work at.  These ideas are important ones to impress upon our young people, and in my experience (and opinion!), this next generation are caring, committed and concerned about the world they live in. I wish some media organisation were present this afternoon to hear our next generation express their feelings so articulately and recognise the need to listen to, respect and be inclusive of one another.  

They finished the afternoon by showing a clip from ‘Pay it forward’ and setting our students the challenge to each perform three acts of random kindness before the end of this week. Over the last two days these fabulous presenters spoke to four year levels. All going well, over a 1000 acts of kindness should be played out by Friday afternoon. Should be a good couple of days!