Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to advise the House of a visit I had last Friday to The Essington School in my electorate of Solomon. It was a great opportunity for me to meet with the new student leadership team. I was able to present the student country ambassadors with their badges. The junior school ambassador program involves students from year 5 and they are each allocated a country. The students are encouraged to research the country that they are the ambassador for, and they have to present their findings in a verbal format at an assembly or in a written piece which is presented in the weekly newsletter.

I think this is a great opportunity for the students to research and learn about other countries and cultures and to share their learnings with the whole school community. It also help them develop attitudes and values that accept and value cultural diversity. My electorate, as I keep saying over and over again, is one of the most multicultural communities in the country. We have a very tolerant and very vibrant multicultural community. I think that, when we are teaching our students at school about cultural diversity, it is only going to stand us in good stead.

I would like to put on record the names of the ambassadors for this year. For China we have Jie Ren and Grace Li-Hunnam; for Malaysia we have Archer Watkins and Pannita Clark; for Cambodia we have Sahasra Linga and Aaliya O'Connell; for Thailand we have Shan Aughterson and Paityn Laidler; for Japan we have Raj Fordyce and Caitlyn Kangaharan; for India we have Kishi Stephen-Bolaji and Rosy Michael; for Greece we have Zaivier Page and Chloe Cooper; for Myanmar we have Conrad Venturin and Emma Hornby; and for Indonesia we have Felix Walker-Sangster and Emily Horder.

It was an absolute pleasure to meet these wonderful students, and I am confident that they will be great role models for their peers. I am also pleased that the school gave me a teddy bear, which is their mascot. I said to them that I would bring it to Canberra. It is now sitting on my desk. Unfortunately, I have left it there, otherwise I would have brought it in here as proof. It is sitting on my desk and it will be put on the bookshelf. I am very pleased and delighted that Essington is doing such a good job, and I thank them for having me as part of their school community.