10 Year Milestone
A key component of the School’s commitment to Round Square is the work done in Cambodia. Each year, a group of students participate in the School’s Cambodian Service Project, working with aid organisations operating locally in Cambodia. One of these aid organisations is the Tabitha Foundation Australia. The School has just celebrated 10 years of changing lives with the Tabitha Foundation. Over the past decade the School has, through creative and robust fundraising initiatives participated in many house-building trips.
,, In 2002 the School was looking to set up a service project in South East Asia and an Alumnus suggested Cambodia as a place in need. In 2003, Lay Chaplain, Andrew Fox from the School’s Service program visited Sihanoukville in Cambodia. What he saw of the house-building program as well as the larger Tabitha Community Development programs impressed him greatly and there began the School's long held relationship with Cambodia and Tabitha.
,, The first team departed in 2004 and built two houses in the villages surrounding Siam Reap. The program has accelerated since then and now the relationship with Tabitha has expanded throughout the School community to include more than six other community development and aid organisations as part of the service program offered at the School.
,, Tabitha and Cambodia are part of the curriculum across the whole School from the primary years right up until Year 11. Students are required to raise a minimum target of funds and with the help of the broader School community contribute through market days, concerts and sausage sizzles. The ability to fundraise through the Tabitha Foundation Australia website has helped students to mobilise their parents, extended families and the wider community.
,, For students the experience is life altering and the impact on the Cambodian families involved has been profound. Tabitha remains essential to Ivanhoe Grammar School’s service program and we look forward to the relationship developing into the future.
Read more about Round Square at Ivanhoe Grammar School here
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