Brisbane School Sending Shelter Boxes to Beirut

The devastating explosion at the Port of Beirut in August killed 170 people, wounded over 60,000 and left over 300,000 people homeless.

One Brisbane school is responding to the ongoing humanitarian crisis, with St John Fisher College in Bracken Ridge partnering with Aspley Rotary to provide Shelter Boxes for Beirut.

ShelterBox teams work with disaster-hit families around the world, offering emergency shelter and other essential items to support them in rebuilding their lives.

Geraldine Swindells is an Assistant Principal at St John Fisher College and told 96five’s Ken and Nicky that the idea was sparked by students having a hunger for social justice issues.

“Each year we choose an international project to get involved with, and we have previously done Shelter Box drives in the past.  Obviously the Beirut incident was such a devastating one for the people of the Middle East who are already suffering from the after effects of war.  We felt that another purchase of a Shelter Box, with all its practical tools that help give people a start when they’ve lost everything would be a really great project to get behind.”

Cathy Galvin is the principal at St John Fisher and said that the social justice projects that the school gets involved in helps to create an awareness in students of important issues.

“The girls do a lot in our own community such as domestic violence awareness, as well as projects with a global perspective.  I do believe it’s especially important for our young people to have an outward focus, this was a way of helping them bring what’s happened overseas into their own homes.”

Each Shelter Box costs $1100 and the girls at St John Fisher College raised almost half the cost of a box on the first morning of fundraising, with an old fashioned coin line!

You can jump on board and help with a donation at the schools Shelter Box Appeal website.  Every donation will help to turn despair into hope for a struggling Lebanese family in Beirut.