Students from Stella Maris, Shellharbour and Corpus Christi, Oak Flats have played a key role in designing the new and improved playground area at Little Park in Shellharbour Village - officially opened by Shellharbour City Council last week. 

YMCA Youth Parliament is a unique program in which the best and brightest youth engage with national politics and present real bills to Parliament on issues that affect them. Youth Parliament is not just an exercise, since its beginning in 2002 over half a dozen pieces of YMCA NSW Youth Parliament youth legislation have been passed into NSW Law, including the recent Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme.

Ciao dall’Italia! (Hello from Italy!) 

Students from Holy Spirit College, Bellambi and St Joseph’s Catholic High School, Albion Park have enjoyed a trip together to Italy - touring the country, learning in an Italian school and even living with local Italian families - in a unique learning opportunity offered by the two Catholic schools.

The week-long inter-diocesan STEM challenge - Project Stay Afloat 2018 - has seen 1,700 students from over 60 classes in 30 schools across the Dioceses of Wollongong and Lismore use their Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics skills to create in-class solutions to a global problem: rising sea levels.

Which Diocese of Wollongong school won the challenge?

Are you a student in Years 8-11? Enjoy creative writing? Have a passion for social justice, human rights and eco-justice? We have the competition for you! The Edmund Rice Centre invites you to take part in their 2018 Justice Literary Writing Competition.

See here for competition details, prizes and how to enter.

For details and to purchase tickets, continue reading. 

National Families Week, held from 15 to 21 May, aims to celebrate the vital role that families play in Australian society. 

Anzac Day, 25 April, is one of Australia’s most important national occasions. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. 

A celebration and immersion of local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture provided a memorable experience for over 60 staff from across the Diocese at a recent CEDoW conference.

Guided by the theme, Reconciliation: Everyone’s Business, the two-day event saw Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Teacher Contacts and Aboriginal Education Assistants (AEAs) from our schools, and other Catholic Education personnel gather at The Hermitage in Mittagong.

Community gathered on Sunday 15 April to pay their respects to the victims of the Appin Massacre at a memorial hosted by Winga Myamly Reconciliation Group, in remembrance of the massacre of Aboriginal people 202 years ago.

Grace Mulley, a Year 12 student at Corpus Christi Catholic High School, Oak Flats, has won the prestigious Zonta International Young Women in Public Affairs Award for 2018.

The Australian Bishops have put a call out to young Catholics to engage with the Church, celebrate and be celebrated in a declared ‘Year of Youth’. From the launch in Sydney to within our Catholic secondary schools since, Diocese of Wollongong students have responded in great numbers and even greater enthusiasm.

Lent has had a special meaning for staff and students at Our Lady Help of Christians Parish Primary School, Rosemeadow this year, where the school community has focused its efforts on raising money for a non-profit school in Tanzania. Two of its teachers are travelling to the African nation in the upcoming school holidays to personally deliver the funds.

As a baby, Courtney Schonell chose to hold a hockey stick over a dummy. At age four, she picked up that stick to play. Six years later, she made her first national hockey team. Now, at 17 years old, Courtney has won the NSWCCC Vince Villa Award for most outstanding female athlete across all sports and is on track to represent Australia at the 2018 Youth Olympics.

From 12 to 31 March, hundreds of students from Magdalene Catholic High School, Narellan stepped up their cardio to take on the ‘Let’s Move for a Better World’ global campaign, donating their physical exercise for a good cause.

On Good Friday, the entire Church fixes her gaze on the Cross at Calvary. For the St Mary Star of the Sea students and parishioners in Milton, their view of the Cross is complemented by rolling, green farmland surrounds, the sun shining down on a white church standing strong atop a hill. Behind it, a backdrop of beautiful southern NSW escarpment.

In this holy season of Easter, I convey my very best wishes to all involved in Catholic education right across our Diocese. I gratefully acknowledge the outstanding work you do in the service of our young people and our Catholic schools.

Over 80 students and staff involved in Youth Ministry at each of our diocese’s Catholic systemic secondary schools have gathered at Stanwell Tops to participate in the Youth Ministry Leaders Overnight Formation Retreat.