Students at Heathdale Christian College in Werribee are throwing their support behind vulnerable communities in the Philippines.
The students recently raised more than $10,000 for the Rehoboth Children’s Home, which is located in the village of Santa Maria.
In past years, Heathdale pupils have also visited the Payatas, a Filipino community which worked at a dumpsite in Quezon City.
The government closed the site in 2017, leaving many people without their source of food and income.
Since then, social workers have helped residents learn how to make goods to sell, such as pencil cases, under the banner of Payatas Products.
Heathdale vice-captain Alex Richardson and other students have been active in helping create sales opportunities for goods being made by Payatas Products.
Alex and Payatas Products recently negotiated a deal with Heathdale’s booklist supplier, Campion, to make the pencil cases a compulsory item on booklists for prep to grade six pupils at the college’s Werribee campus and prep to year eight students at the Melton campus.
Alex said including the pencil cases on the college’s booklist means that six residents of the Payatas community have been given full-time work.
“As well as giving them work we have also been able to consult with the people at Payatas and our other contacts in the Philippines to create the budget for this project,” Alex said.
“That way we are working with the costs of things like labour and materials that the workers give us, rather than us setting the terms in Australia.
“This gives them more freedom as to how they work.”
