Planting Seeds for our Rural Kids’ Futures
Last week, Yarram, Mirboo North and Wonthaggi received a visit from the Dream Seeds team, a group of rural young adults who have received scholarships to University or completed leadership training with the Macpherson Smith Rural Foundation.
Dream Seeds® is a fun, interactive workshop, which is all about sewing the seeds with our Grade 6 Students for their future, showing them that they can follow their dreams, and overcome any barriers to education, aspiration and participation.
“The idea for Dream Seeds® began in 2014, based on research released in October 2013 suggesting rural Victoria youth can face barriers to learning, particularly when developing aspirations”, explained Kitty, the team’s engaging Media Officer.
“The original interactive curriculum aims to counter this, by developing the knowledge and skills that young people need to create a vision and practical pathways towards positive futures and to be leaders of their own lives. The core themes of Dream Seeds® are aspiration, resilience and connection”
The students at Mirboo North Primary responded well to the program, with many reflective and mature discussions occurring around the themes of values and self-reflection. Student feedback was highly positive, showing that students were enjoying the program as well learning something about themselves.
“It was a pleasure to be warmly welcomed by Mirboo North Primary School and the Mirboo North & District Community Foundation. Dream Seeds® looks forward to working with the students and community of the area again in the future”, said Kitty.
The feedback on the Dream Seeds Program collected thus far from 325 student feedback forms and teacher evaluations has been overwhelmingly positive. When surveyed, 85% of students ‘Liked’ each activity we facilitated, with many offering feedback which aligned with the message and goals of our organisation. One student noted, “I liked how it was fun, but we also learnt something about ourselves” and another said “It’s really fun how we did things about the community”.
Since the beginning of the program, 84 young leaders have been involved in the creation and roll out of the program and over 10 schools have been visited in the past three years. Dream Seeds® is currently seeking funding to help expand their program all over the state to spread their message to all young students across Victoria.
Dream Seeds® is also working on a network for rural students to connect to each other to discuss aspirations and dreams and get the necessary support to aid their success. Although this is a work in progress, the concept is very exciting as it would allow rural youth to act more persistently on their hopes and aspirations, creating stronger communities and opening doors to further education of rural students around the state.
To find out more about Dream Seeds you can follow them on :
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MSRFdreamseeds/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/dreamseeds