Why work with International Needs Australia (INA)
- Learn about global poverty in way that connects theory and in-country experiences, connect with the experiences of peers living in these countries
- Student and staff engagement opportunities with field staff in Southeast Asia, South Asia & Eastern Africa
- Contemporary learning and high impact teaching strategies (HITS)
- Access to resources for case studies
Our Workshops
INA Workshop series ( Preps to Year 7)
Just Like Me (JLM) workshops focus on global poverty for primary school Preps to Year 7s and teach global poverty through immersive activities. Each child is personally challenged to reflect, act and understand the lives of children overseas in context to their own experiences. JLM helps to develop culture of philanthropy and global understanding and concern is key in our future. Workshops support 50 to 100 students and run for 90 minutes and are delivered face-to-face by INA staff. We support schools to develop and implement meaningful and exciting Social Justice Days to support global education programs.
“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. … poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.” Nelson Mandela
Click here to learn more
Just Like Me (JLM) workshops are suitable for Preps to Year 7s. We can also facilitate a tailored program to co-design and embed issues about global poverty and social responsibility in the curriculum. These social justice education workshops link to the new Australian Curriculum through action to deepen understanding and empathy for global poverty, and help students find a purpose to create a better and more sustainable future for everybody.
Why Just Like Me?
Education is a human right, a key driver of development and a central mechanism to reduce poverty and improve health, gender equality, peace, and community stability. It delivers large, consistent returns in terms of income and is the most important factor to ensure equality of opportunities. Every child has the right to a safe, healthy, educated future and education is a pathway out of poverty. Globally, more than 72 million children of primary education age education are not in school. When children are not in school, they are denied the opportunity to create a better future for both themselves and their families. When parents are uneducated, they are less able to provide the necessities for their children. Simply put – education has the power to break the poverty cycle.
Curriculum links:
Just Like Me links varied learning areas and develops cross-curriculum perspectives. The focus of each topic of inquiry aligns with the Australian National Curriculum General Capabilities (version 8.4).
- Intercultural Understanding
Students learn about and engage with diverse cultures in ways that recognise commonalities and differences, create connections with others and cultivate mutual respect.
- Ethical Understanding
Students build a strong personal and socially oriented ethical outlook that helps them to manage context, conflict and uncertainty, and to develop an awareness of the influence that their values and behaviour have on others.
- Critical and Creative Thinking
Students learn to generate and evaluate knowledge, clarify concepts and ideas, seek possibilities, consider alternatives and solve problems.
- Personal and Social Capability
Students learn to understand themselves and others, and manage their relationships, lives, work and learning more effectively.
JLM also ties in with the Australian Curriculum’s Cross-curriculum priority.
- Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia
Students access a regional context for learning in all areas of the curriculum, reflecting Australia’s extensive engagement with Asia in social, cultural, political and economic spheres.
Workshop details:
Duration: Workshop 90 -100 minutes
Delivery: Programs are co-facilitated by university-level students with experience in
developing countries and who are selected to relate well to student groups.
The Just Like Me Workshop includes:
- a fun Poverty Hotseat quiz
- a video of a day in the life of an Indian or Ugandan child (this can be a live link to a classroom in Uganda)
- outside activities like carrying a bucket of water on your head
- and a circle activity about the inequitable division of the world’s wealth.
Learning Objective
Students will…
- learn about global poverty and to help students personalise the experience and deepen their empathy for less fortunate peers in other countries
- support the Australian National Curriculum’s general capabilities: intercultural understanding, ethical behaviour, critical and creative thinking, and personal and social competence. The workshop also links to the following cross-curriculum priority of Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia
- support the goals in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration for all young Australians to become confident and creative individuals and successful lifelong learners who are active and informed members of the community
- A lack of funding for education – even though it only costs an average of $1.25 a day per child in developing countries to provide 13 years of education.
- Having no teacher, or having an untrained teacher – there are 130 million children in school who are not learning basic skills like reading, writing and math.69 million new teachers are required to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030.
- No classroom, or lack of learning materials – in parts of sub-Saharan Africa there are an average of 130 children per classroom in first grade, only 1 in 7 schools has potable water, and just 1 in 4 has a toilet. Only 3.5% of all sixth-grade pupils had sole use of a reading textbook.
- The exclusion of children with disabilities and girls – in some of the world’s poorest countries, up to 95% of children with disabilities are out of school. Gender is one of the biggest reasons why children are denied an education. Over 130 million young women around the world are not currently enrolled in school. One in 3 girls in the developing world marries before the age of 18.
- Living in a country in conflict or at risk of conflict – more than 75 million children and young people aged 3 to 18 are currently in urgent need of educational support in 35 crisis-affected countries, with young girls 90% more likely to be out of secondary school in conflict areas than elsewhere.
- Distance from home to school – a walk to school of up to three hours in each direction is not uncommon.
- Hunger and poor nutrition – around 155 million children under the age of five are estimated to be stunted. Stunted children are 19% less likely to be able to read by age eight.
- The expense of education – families remain locked in a cycle of poverty that goes on for generations. The poorest families risk making themselves destitute in their efforts to get their children better lives through education.*
Register your interest in the program.
Act Your Purpose (AYP) Program
(Year 9 and 10)
Act Your Purpose is a year-long program for Years 9 and 10 students. The sessions are engaging and immersive and help students find and solidify their passion for social justice, brainstorm action, develop a campaign and act, and guidance on future action and involvement. Besides learning about a problem, this encourages a sustainable engagement by youth with their social justice issues. AYP helps to develop a culture of philanthropy and global understanding and concern is key in our future generations.
This program allows for a sustainable contribution from youth to their social justice area of passion through a knowledge-based, financial, and entrepreneurial lens.
AYP is a year-long program that works with Years 9 or 10 in secondary schools around Australia. Each program consists of 4 core workshops, presented either in-person or online. Each session runs for 60-100 minutes, and 4 sessions are facilitated over the year – 1 session per term. The sessions typically run during homeroom lessons, splitting the year level into groups of 25-35 students.
Each group will have 1-2 experienced presenters. The sessions will be engaging and immersive: using props, games, discussion activities, presentations, and videos as workshop material.
The program follows the workshop timeline of 1) Introducing AYP, and INA, and helping students find their passion in social justice. 2) Solidify passion and brainstorm action. 3) How to create a campaign and take action. 4) Future action and involvement.
Click here to learn more
Act Your Purpose (AYP) Program
AYP is a year-long program that works with Years 9 and 10 in secondary schools around Australia.
AYP is a year-long program that works with Years 9 or 10 in secondary schools around Australia. Each program consists of 4 core workshops, presented either in-person or online. Each session runs for 60-100 minutes, and 4 sessions are facilitated over the year – 1 session per term. The sessions typically run during homeroom lessons, splitting the year level into groups of 25-35 students.
Each group will have 1-2 experienced university-level students with experience in
who are selected to relate well to student groups. The sessions will be engaging and immersive: using props, games, discussion activities, presentations, and videos as workshop material.
The program follows the workshop sequence of
1) Introducing AYP, and INA, and helping students find their passion in social justice
2) Solidify passion and brainstorm action
3) How to create a campaign and take action
4) Future action and involvement
Learn more about our mission and vision and the aim of AYP. Also find out why your school should participate, how it works and what our core values are.
#Act Your Purpose (AYP)
- Students decide their “truth”, identify their purpose, and act on their purpose
- Growing youth philanthropy through action
Act Your Purpose Overview
Our Mission – Our mission is to create a school-centered program that fosters purpose, ambition, and empowerment in high school students around Australia.
Our Vision – Our vision is to facilitate a year-long program throughout Australian high schools, centring around ambition and purpose, and ultimately empowering students to action change in their focused area of social justice.
Aim of ActYourPurpose
The motivation behind ActYourPurpose (AYP) is to help secondary students consider and identify a sense of purpose and passion for their world. This could include global poverty, human rights climate change, youth homelessness, faith, etc. The key focus will be adolescent middle secondary school students.
The aim of ActYourPurpose is two-fold:
- To inspire students to identify their purpose in the realm of social justice, inciting a wave of passion in youth to pursue social justice-based involvement
- To facilitate how the passionate students can affect change in their areas of passion: campaigning, and involvement in charity or local government.
ActYourPurpose will be a higher-level program that is profiled as part of INA’s work in schools.
INA school programs educate and increase awareness of global poverty and INA’s work to enable people to reach their potential. However, there is little opportunity to encourage and engage students in developing a personal view on this and channelling this into positive, tangible action. In turn, the more students that are inspired to act on their purposes will lead to increased empathy and support for INA causes.
Why Purpose?
Encouraging students to identify and act on their purpose is the higher-level strategic framework for INA’s work in Australia and, in particular, schools. It also links to Student Voice and Positive Education movements within schools.
We can pass through life in two ways: To consider and identify our purpose and act on it, or have an undefined purpose and reactively respond to life’s challenges. Having and acting on a sense of purpose is well proven to be essential for mental health. During COVID, there are pressures on children’s and adults’ mental health, and a sense of purpose is shown to help overcome this 1.
Research shows a connection between a sense of purpose, health benefits, and overall quality of life 2. Leaders in the field of positive psychology and education explain purpose and meaning as cornerstones of happiness, flow, optimal experience, and a life well-lived 3.
Purpose opens opportunities. This information can help us to define goals and ideals that are personally meaningful and reach beyond ourselves.
Purpose has 3 elements: commitment, goal-directedness, personal meaningfulness, and a focus on impacting the world ‘beyond-the-self’. This is particularly relevant in adolescence and emerging adulthood when an individual discovers and commits to pursuing a personally meaningful aim, whether charitable, family-focused, creative, sporting, spiritual, civic or via another pathway. Hence, the development of purpose is closely identified with the development of identity 5.
How does AYP work?
AYP is a year-long program for Years 9 and 10 in secondary schools around Australia. Each program will consist of 4 structured workshops, presented either in-person or online – depending on the requirements of the school. Each session will run for approximately 60-90 minutes, and there will be 4 sessions facilitated over the year; one session per term. The sessions will typically run during homeroom lessons, with the year level split into groups of 35-45 students.
Each group will have 1-2 experienced and polished presenters, that has been updated on AYP and INA from both the Program Coordinator of AYP and the CEO of INA. The sessions will be engaging and immersive, using props, games, discussion activities, presentations, and videos as workshop material.
The program will follow the workshop timeline of 1) introducing AYP, and INA, and helping students to find their passion in social justice. 2) solidify passion and brainstorm action. 3) how to create a campaign and take action. 4) future action and involvement. By the end of the year, we will have helped students find their purpose in social justice, helped create a campaign, and then assist them in getting involved in that area locally through volunteering and community service efforts. This will allow for a sustainable contribution from youth to their social justice issue, rather than simply learning about a problem.
After the second workshop, we will create an AYP committee with the students for anyone that would like further involvement, assistance with campaign strategy, or increased communication with the INA team. This will allow the students to band together in creating effective and collaborative projects, whilst also providing a channel of communication with INA for additional support throughout their journey.
What sets us apart?
We recognise that the social-justice-school-workshop industry is a heavily oversaturated market. However, we have unique value propositions and offerings that differentiate us from the rest of that market.
- Overlooked issues. We are teaching about international development issues, not only issues locally felt. The people we are helping require real assistance, and are typically overlooked in youth within Australia
- Year-long. Most programs are one-off workshops, where the organisation comes in, teaches students, and leaves. Uniquely, we are creating a year-long program and a year-long connection with the school and students. This will allow the work to be continually reinforced and solidified
- Not only teaching. We are not only helping teach students about social justice topics. Instead, we are helping students find their purpose, and then assisting them with creating campaigns and ultimately getting them involved in the area of choice – which will sustainably allow students to remain committed to community service.
- External view of success. By the end of the program, we will have generated data on how much money was raised and how many students have committed further involvement in the area of choice. This can be publicised by INA and the school to bolster the social justice-oriented lens of the school.
- AYP committee. Additional support and communication with the INA team throughout the year, so that they have a constant point of contact for assistance in campaigning or general community service and involvement.
Our Core Values
Empowerment: We are determined to facilitate a program that will empower students to yield a greater connection to and investment in social justice.
Purpose: We are determined to help high-school students to find their passion and purpose in social justice, and develop skills to help them engage meaningfully in their area of interest.
Ambition: We are determined to cultivate a generation of passionate students who ultimately assume a self-driven ambition to pursue community service and social justice
Register your interest in the program.
Gender Equity and Girls’ Education
INA Workshop Series (Year 5 to Year 10)
Gender Equity and Girls’ Education workshops address global poverty, gender equity and girls’ education for students in Year 5 to Year 10. These focus on global poverty and gender equity through immersive activities and confronting the barriers to girls’ education – like poverty, child marriage, gender-based violence, and menstruation poverty – that vary between countries and communities. There is an additional opportunity for the students to support girls’ and women’s empowerment and education.
There is an additional opportunity for the students to support girls’ and women’s empowerment and education for SHE.
Click here to learn more
The Gender Equity and Girls’ Education Workshop is suitable for Year 5 to 10s.
The 90-minute workshop runs in groups of 20 to 100 students and is delivered online and face-to-face by INA staff. The focus is on global poverty and gender equity through immersive activities, an interactive quiz, videos, and discussion. Worldwide, 129 million girls are out of school. In countries affected by conflict, girls are more than twice as likely to be out of school than girls living in non-affected countries. Barriers to girls’ education – like poverty, child marriage, gender-based violence, and menstruation – vary between countries and communities.
Gender inequality is a significant cause and effect of hunger and poverty: it is estimated that 60% of chronically hungry people are women and girls. Almost 70% of employed women in South Asia work in agriculture, as do more than 60% of employed women in sub-Saharan Africa. Women in sub-Saharan Africa collectively spend about 40 billion hours a year collecting water. This significantly impacts women’s employment opportunities. According to global statistics, just 39% of rural girls attend secondary school. Every additional year of primary school increases girls’ eventual wages by 10-20%. Barriers to girls’ education –including poverty, child marriage, gender-based violence, and menstruation – vary between countries and communities.
There is an additional opportunity for the students to support girls and women’s empowerment and education for SHE www.ina.org.au/she
Curriculum links:
The workshop makes links with varied learning areas and develops cross-curriculum perspectives. The focus of each topic of inquiry aligns with the Australian National Curriculum General Capabilities (version 8.4).
- Intercultural Understanding
Students learn about and engage with diverse cultures in ways that recognise commonalities and differences, create connections with others and cultivate mutual respect.
- Ethical Understanding
Students build a strong personal and socially oriented ethical outlook that helps them to manage context, conflict and uncertainty, and develop an awareness of the influence that their values and behaviour have on others.
- Critical and Creative Thinking
Students learn to generate and evaluate knowledge, clarify concepts and ideas, seek possibilities, consider alternatives, and solve problems.
- Personal and Social Capability
Students learn to understand themselves and others, and manage their relationships, lives, work and learn more effectively.
The workshop also ties in with the Australian Curriculum’s Cross-curriculum priority.
- Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia
Provides a regional context for learning in all areas of the curriculum. It reflects Australia’s extensive engagement with Asia in social, cultural, political and economic spheres.
Civics and Citizenship Curriculum Years 7-10
Citizenship, diversity, and identity
How Australia is a secular nation and multi-faith society with a Christian heritage and how values, including freedom, respect, inclusion, civility, responsibility, compassion, equality and a ‘fair go’, can promote cohesion within Australian society.
Communication and reflection
Reflect on their role as citizen in Australia’s society and recognising their own emotional reactions when interacting with people who are different from them and raising awareness of different perspectives.
Workshop details:
Duration: Workshop 90-minutes
Delivery: By INA staff and/or facilitator and online or face-to-face in the classroom.
The Gender Equity and Girls Education Workshop include:
- presentation about gender equity, girls’ education, and Malala’s story,
- videos about Gender Equity,
- discuss global poverty and gender equality,
- learning activity about gender equity,
- Gender Equity quiz.
Learning Objective
Students will be able to…
- learn about global poverty and to help them personalize this and feel empathy by being able to reflect on their own lives with less fortunate peers in other countries
- support the Australian National Curriculum’s general capabilities: Intercultural understanding, ethical behaviour, critical and creative thinking, and personal and social competence. The workshop also links to the following cross-curriculum priority of Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia
- support the Civics and Citizenship National Curriculum and learn about diversity and gender equity and equality
- support the goals in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration for all young Australians to become confident and creative individuals and successful lifelong learners who are active and informed members of the community
Facts & Figures – Girls’ Education and Poverty
- Gender inequality is a major cause and effect of hunger and poverty: it is estimated that 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women and girls. (Source: WFP Gender Policy and Strategy.)
- Women make up more than two-thirds of the world’s 796 million illiterate people.
- Every additional year of primary school increases girls’ eventual wages by 10-20 %.
- A large gender gap remains in women’s access to decision-making and leadership.
Register your interest in the program.
Global Poverty and Democracy Workshop
INA Workshop Series (Year 5 to Year 10)
The Global Poverty and Democracy workshop is a 90-minute workshop about global poverty and democracy. Workshops are suitable for students in Years 5 to 10 and the workshop is run in groups of 20 to 100 students and can be delivered online and face-to-face by INA staff.
The Global Poverty and Democracy Workshop teaches global poverty and democracy through immersive activities, interactive quizzes, videos, and discussion. This learning activity explores a variety of democracies present within 8 countries INA is in partnership with: Ethiopia, Myanmar, Ghana, India, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Uganda. Through student collaboration and whole-class discussion, investigations of each type of democracy (authoritative, flawed, and a hybrid regime) will occur in comparison to Australia’s democracy.
Click here to learn more
Global Poverty and Democracy Workshop
The Global Poverty and Democracy workshop is suitable for Years 5 to 10.
Curriculum links:
The workshop makes links with varied learning areas and develops cross-curriculum perspectives. The focus of each topic of inquiry aligns with the Australian National Curriculum General Capabilities (version 8.4).
- Intercultural Understanding
Involves students learning about and engaging with diverse cultures in ways that recognise commonalities and differences, create connections with others and cultivate mutual respect.
- Ethical Understanding
Involves students building a strong personal and socially oriented ethical outlook that helps them to manage context, conflict and uncertainty, and to develop an awareness of the influence that their values and behaviour have on others.
- Critical and Creative Thinking
The students learn to generate and evaluate knowledge, clarify concepts and ideas, seek possibilities, consider alternatives and solve problems.
- Personal and Social Capability
They learn to understand themselves and others, and manage their relationships, lives, work and learning more effectively.
The workshop also tries in with the Australian Curriculum’s Cross-curriculum priority.
- Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia
Provides a regional context for learning in all areas of the curriculum. It reflects Australia’s extensive engagement with Asia in social, cultural, political and economic spheres.
Civics and Citizenship Curriculum Years 7-10
Government and democracy
Exploring the concept of the separation of powers between the legislature, executive and judiciary and how it seeks to prevent the excessive concentration of powers.
Citizenship, diversity, and identity
Considering how Australia’s location in the Asian region influences interactions between Australians and those living in the region.
Communication and reflection
Reflect on their role as citizen in Australia’s democracy and raising awareness of different perspectives.
Workshop details:
Duration: 90 minutes
Delivery: Programs are co-facilitated online or face-to-face in the classroom by university-
level students with experience in developing countries and who are selected to
relate well to student groups.
Global Poverty and Democracy workshop includes:
- A presentation about global poverty and democracy
- discuss global poverty and participation in democracy
- democracy learning activity with scenarios
Learning Objective
Students will be able to…
- learn about global poverty and to help them personalize this and feel empathy by being able to reflect on their own lives with less fortunate peers in other countries
- support the Australian National Curriculum’s general capabilities: Intercultural understanding, ethical behaviour, critical and creative thinking, and personal and social competence. The workshop also links to the following cross-curriculum priority of Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia
- support the Civics and Citizenship National Curriculum and learn about diversity and democracy and how to be an active citizen
- support the goals in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration for all young Australians to become confident and creative individuals and successful lifelong learners who are active and informed members of the community
Register your interest in the program.
INA Live it – Immersive Incursion
INA Workshop Series (Year 6 to Year 9)
INA Live it – Immersive Incursion experiences can link students in Year 6 to Year 9 to any of our partner countries (Philippines, India, Ethiopia, Uganda, Nepal or Sri Lanka). The experience supports learning about each other’s cultures and beliefs; deepens social and intercultural knowledge; increases children’s awareness of the importance of community and personal development by developing empathy.
Click here to learn more
Curriculum links:
The incursion makes links with varied learning areas and develops cross-curriculum perspectives. The focus of each topic of inquiry aligns with The Australian National Curriculum General Capabilities.
- Intercultural Understanding
Students respect and appreciate their own and others’ cultures and to develop an appreciation of difference and diversity.
- Ethical Behaviour
Develops students understanding and leads them to act by moral and ethical principles. Students understand the place of ethics and values in human life, having a desire and capacity to work for the common good.
If your school is connecting to an Asian country, the following cross-curriculum priority is relevant:
Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia
Provides a regional context for learning in all areas of the curriculum. It reflects Australia’s extensive engagement with Asia in social, cultural, political, and economic spheres.
Details of immersive experience:
|
Option 1 (Draft): 20 Hours – 5 hours/term
Held on the last week of each term
Recommended |
|
| Overview | What |
| DAY 1 | |
| Introduction |
Interactive games, presentations, and videos discussing the Philippines Discussion on the work INA does in the Philippines. |
| Zoom call |
Zoom with the school in the Philippines to discuss Have a conversation – both students and the Philippines school to answer * points of discussion:
|
| DAY 2 | |
| Game | Play a game that’s played traditionally in the Philippines |
| Movie | Watch movie (Philippines-related) _(film) |
| Reflection | What did they learn about Filipino culture from the movie? |
| Zoom call |
Zoom with the school in the Philippines to discuss * points of discussion:
|
| DAY 3 | |
| Game | Play a game that is traditional in the Philippines |
| Meal | Eat traditional Filipino meal (provided) |
| Zoom call |
Zoom with the school in the Philippines to discuss * points of discussion:
|
| DAY 4 | |
| Game | Play a game that is traditional in the Philippines |
| Cooking | Cook a traditional Filipino meal and then eat |
| Zoom call |
Zoom with the school in the Philippines to discuss * points of discussion:
|
|
DAY 5 After school with parents (optional) |
|
| Game | Play a game that is traditional in the Philippines |
| Music and Dance | Have a dancer and performer come in to give a concert of traditional Filipino music and then teach traditional Filipino dance |
| Zoom call |
Final Zoom call thanking everyone for their time Reflect on what they learned – what are the similarities between the two schools? |
| Ted-talk |
Selected students give talks about what they have learned, who they met, and how they grew. Each will be on a different topic:
|
| Finale | Closing ceremony certificates |
Option 2 (Draft): 12 Hours – 3 hours/term
Held on the last week of each term
Option 3: 20 Hours – ~1 hour/fortnight
Spread over the year during homeroom
Register your interest in the program.
INA Live it – Overseas Excursion
(Year 6 to Year 11)
INA Live it – Overseas Excursion experiences can link students in Year 6 to Year 11 within and between schools to any of our partner countries (Philippines, India, Ethiopia, Uganda, Nepal or Sri Lanka). The experience supports learning about each other’s cultures and beliefs; deepens social and intercultural knowledge; increases children’s awareness of the importance of community and personal development by developing empathy. Overseas excursions help to develop culture of philanthropy and global understanding and concern is key in our future generations.
Click here to learn more
Curriculum links:
The incursion makes links with varied learning areas and develops cross-curriculum perspectives. The focus of each topic of inquiry aligns with The Australian National Curriculum General Capabilities.
- Intercultural Understanding
Students respect and appreciate their own and others’ cultures and to develop an appreciation of difference and diversity.
- Ethical Behaviour
Develops students understanding and leads them to act by moral and ethical principles. Students understand the place of ethics and values in human life, having a desire and capacity to work for the common good.
If your school is connecting to an Asian country, the following cross-curriculum priority is relevant:
Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia
Provides a regional context for learning in all areas of the curriculum. It reflects Australia’s extensive engagement with Asia in social, cultural, political, and economic spheres.
Register your interest in the program.
Please Donate
Please help your school/child make a positive change for disadvantaged children overseas – simply click here to donate