Insites
Tours
At Newington, Senior boys are presented with a number of domestic and international service learning tour opportunities.
Our Connections
The Service Learning program currently supports Newington’s long standing relationships with Tupou College in Tonga and the Hermann Gmeiner School in Nepal as well as a tour to Central Australia. Tours to these destinations provide our boys with the chance to experience the cultural diversity and difficulties faced by our neighbours in these regions.
Red Centre Immersion Tour
Since 2012, the Service Learning program at the College has collaborated with various Australian organisations to foster partnerships between students and remote Indigenous Australian communities. These tours have given boys the opportunity to connect with remote Indigenous Australia in a meaningful way.
The Red Centre Immersion Tour to Central Australia is a week long camping trip in the June-July holidays. Boys have the opportunity to get a rare glimpse at the history and culture of Indigenous Australians living in Central Australia.
In 2015 and 2016 during the July holiday period, a group of Year 11 Newington boys travelled to the Red Centre where they visited the mission town of Hermannsburg and were granted rare permission to visit the Mutijtulu community near Uluru. While there, the touring party met the town’s local young people and elders and had the chance to share their history, culture and the hand of friendship.
While there the boys got to experience traditional Aboriginal culture through the stories and Dreaming places of the Elders. The community’s Elders have expressed great interest in teaching the young people about their culture – about its rich connection to the land and ongoing relevance to the life of Aboriginal peoples. They want the leaders of tomorrow to experience Aboriginal culture and to know how important it is to their identity as Indigenous peoples.
The trip was a humbling learning experience for our boys and will be offered again to Year 11 boys in 2018 and hopefully for many years to come.
I decided to go on the Red Centre Tour to gain a better understanding of aboriginal culture and to see a part of Australia I haven’t been to before. The trip provided an eye opener into the injustice that aboriginal peoples have suffered since white man’s arrival.
Tonga Tour
Newington College’s historical links with Tupou College, Tonga has provided boys with the opportunity to travel to Tonga and contribute to the Tupou College community. Since 2010, a touring party of staff and boys have visited Tonga for an U15 Rugby and Service Learning Tour. Accommodated in the Tupou College Boarding House, boys get a firsthand experience of Tongan culture and endeavor to give back to the Tongan community by participating in Service Learning activities, including working alongside the Tongan students and teachers in their classrooms and helping on building projects to improve the College’s facilities.
A highlight of the Tour has become the annual delivery of a container of resources sponsored by Ken Grover from Gulliver’s Sport Travel. Thanks to the generosity of the Newington College community, a variety of resources including textbooks, science equipment, classroom furniture, laptops, a data projector and other IT equipment, farming equipment, clothes, catering equipment and various Rugby resources were donated to Tupou College in the container.
Over the years the boys have been overwhelmed by the love and hospitality shown by their Tupou brothers. Many of the Newington boys have commented on the generosity that the Toloa boys have displayed, having gone to enormous efforts to welcome and accommodate the touring party during their stay.
Nepal Tour
Initiated in 1996, the Nepal Tour combines community work with extraordinary treks into the Everest region and intercultural learning opportunities.
In 1996 Mr Michael Davis took the first group of Newington boys to Nepal and developed a long friendship with the SOS Children’s Villages and Hermann Gmeiner Schools. The College has since formed a strong relationship with a community health project in the village of Jumbesi, the Kushedebu Public Health Mission Nepal.
Junbesi is very remote; so remote that transport occurs exclusively on foot and by donkey. Despite it being so remote, it’s home to the closest medical facility for many Nepalese people, providing invaluable services such as immunisations, X-rays and maternity facilities.
When the earthquakes hit Nepal in March 2015 the Newington community joined together to help raise much needed funds to help with the recovery process. Thanks to the generous efforts of the boys and their families over $11,000 was raised.
2016 Tour
On the 2016 tour there were two main service projects: firstly, three days were spent at a remote health clinic undertaking essential maintenance work on the building and providing valuable lessons on public health to students at a nearby school.
Secondly, the students visited the Hermann Gmeiner SOS Schools in Kathmandu, which provides housing, food and an education to local homeless children. Newington has a strong relationship with this school having run the Wyvern gap year student program with students from the school for twenty years.
The group went on various treks in to the Everest region to experience some of the most spectacular mountain scenery on earth and to gain an intimate insight into the culture and people of Nepal.
The 22 day trip was an incredibly rewarding and eye-opening learning experience that pushed students outside their comfort zone and helped them appreciate the value of service to others.