On February 18th of this year Sophie Hoebergen, Sophie Clark, Sophie Baillie and Tamieka MacDonald went, on behalf of HGHS, with a donation for Women’s Refuge.

Each year students from Year 11 to Year 13 complete a social action in their Senior Social Studies classes. Students in the Year 11 class often decide to raise awareness around domestic violence, especially violence committed against women. This often leads them to the work that Women’s Refuge do. Along with raising awareness, students will often donate goods and money to the charity. Students do this in multiple ways.

In recent years, one group decided to buy and create lolly bags to hand out to students who donated goods from home for Women’s Refuge. This generated a lot of good will among the rest of the students who loved the idea and brought in tonnes of sanitary items, books and food. Nothing like some free lollies to make a good deed all the more sweet!

Other popular social actions that have had great success involved selling food at school. Social Studies scholars contacted supermarkets or other businesses to ask for donations - making delicious treats to sell on to others at the school. Along with this, sausage sizzles and Mama's Donuts fundraising have been other popular methods of earning donations. Another way students collect goods to donate to Women's Refuge is by contacting businesses that sell sanitary products, food, books and other necessities. When all money and/or items are collected in, these are then dropped off to Women’s Refuge in Hamilton.

We can’t express how proud we are of all of the students who have participated in social actions supporting wāhine within the Waikato community over the years. Teaching young people to know about and support their community is at the core of Social Studies. 

This story was contributed by Mrs Shannan Thomas who is currently on maternity leave. She oversaw the process.