Melbourne News
The 2009 Melbourne pilot program is now well underway and we are seeing some wonderful achievements by our Victorian Little Sisters.
Our Charity Day outing was a huge success, Big Sister, Sarah Thurrowgood ran the morning workshop on Health and Hygiene which was well supported by NIVEA, each Little Sister received a fantastic goody bag full of lovely products. We were then lucky enough to be allowed to go to the Werribee Plaza Priceline Store where the Little Sisters were able to explore the products and given another fantastic goody parcel full of handy products. After this we went to the Wyndham Lodge Community Aged Care centre where we spent a beautiful afternoon with the residents, each Little Sister was able to give two residents a gorgeous gerbera to brighten up their room. This allowed the Little Sister to experience the fantastic feelings associated with doing something nice for someone else along the ‘Pay it Forward’ line. We then played games with the residents and shared afternoon tea. The smiles of both the residents and Big and Little Sisters at the end of the day said it all.
Our May outing saw us tackle the topic of Conflict Resolution. We were so lucky to have the skills of Monica Hadges for this presentation. Monica really made the topic fun to learn about and gave us some great strategies for handling conflict in a variety of situations. We also really enjoyed playing with the art materials and getting creative. We were very spoilt by the Werribee Apex Club who cooked a fantastic BBQ lunch for us. Thanks so much Darren and team! With our bellies full we made tracks to the Women’s Circus and spent the afternoon juggling, balancing, hanging upside down, swinging and climbing to great heights with the fantastic women from the Women’s circus. We had so much fun and laughed the whole afternoon, we also all managed to conquer our fears around heights. Incorporated into the afternoon were some great team building techniques, one of our Big Sisters has now joined the Women’s Circus as a result of this outing and is now having a ton of fun. Thank you Anne Marie for making our afternoon fun and challenging!
June saw us in the Kitchen at the Werribee Community centre cooking up a storm. The Little Sisters competently led by our Big Sisters prepared delicious homemade pizzas, mouth watering Tuna bake and a fabulous chicken stir-fry. We all had a fantastic lunch together. The Little Sisters enjoyed the opportunity to extend their skills in the kitchen and the Big Sisters loved teaching them. With taste buds fully satisfied we got stuck into our afternoon workshop which was led by our Volunteer SISTER2Sister facilitator Christine Miller, this session was all about relationships and personal health. The session was a fantastic awareness session and gave us all the chance to ask some of those girly questions that we were previously afraid to ask. Thanks so much Christine.
July was the month to get creative. The group headed back to the Werribee Community Centre and spent the morning with Kay Griffiths. Kay took us through a session aimed at helping us to understand the complex topic of Grief and Loss. It is a topic that scares us all but with Kay’s help we managed to start on the long journey of working through our own grief and loss. There were many tears during the session but we finished it off with a lovely remembrance ceremony with candles and music. Thank you so much Kay, your session was so meaningful for us. We then spent the afternoon with well known local artist Janet Knight, she helped us become creative and learn to express our feelings through art. We had a wonderful afternoon playing with paint and created some beautiful masterpieces. It is so good to know that art can be used as an outlet for our feelings. Well done Janet!
Overall our Melbourne team are shining stars, we have achieved so much for a small group and continue to grow and learn with each other. This has all been made possible with the support and assistance of so many people. A few of our main sponsors/supporters are listed below
Pacific Brand
Werribee Apex Club
Werribee Community Centre
Women’s Circus - Footscray
Priceline - Werribee Plaza
NIVEA
Wyndham City Council
Nat King - Photographer
Thank you so much for your ongoing support of the SISTER2Sister Program.
Click here to see photos of the girls in the 2009 SISTER2sister Program > |
