Leica Burley is Head of Year 10 at St Hilda's School, Gold Coast, Australia. She is passionate about the holistic development on young people, especially in nurturing their leadership skills and fostering a sense of community through service and volunteerism. Leica has 11 years’ experience in Australian schools and is currently completing her Masters in Educational Leadership.
Organization: St Hilda’s School is an Anglican Girls’ School located on the Gold Coast, Australia. The school is currently celebrating 100 years of girls’ education and has 1250 students from Pre-Preparatory to Year 12, across both day and boarding.
Presentation: Leica leads many service projects within her school, encouraging students to volunteer their time and skills to give to others through volunteerism. Her presentation will focus on St Hilda's School's involvement in such projects as The Oaktree Foundation's Schools4Schools program and yLead Tanzanian Immersion, a three and a half week adventure for Australian youth traveling to Tanzania with a focus on volunteerism, educational partnerships and cultural immersion. Leica will highlight how such programs are contributing to the attainment of the UN Millennium Goals on education and poverty, as well as sharing the benefits received by the Australian students who have volunteered on these projects.
Rachel Giaccherro
Rachel Giaccherro Presentation: World Peace through Inner Peace There have been major efforts and achievements around the world, mostly in developing countries in working towards the realization of the Millennium Development Goals. Even though the goals are crucial for the development and betterment of societies, they can never be achieved in a world without peace. Therefore peace and harmony are the basic foundations that create the necessary environment and surrounding for the attainment of the MDGs. A peaceful environment is created by individuals that collectively and/or separately work towards harmonious and calm surroundings in which everyone has room to grow and attain their goals in life with a feeling of freedom and confidence and thereby build a world filled with love and kindness. For this to happen, individuals have to have inner peace first in order to share it with the outside world and this is where Peace Revolution comes in. Peace Revolution, as a project of the broader World Peace Foundation, is creating a new “paradigm shift” intent on redirecting and refocusing all personal priorities from an outward search to an inward quest designed to discover and cultivate lasting and self-sustaining peace and happiness. Through this, we open powerful and limitless new horizons of personal development. Through the transformation of our inner mind, each of us will consequently transform the world around us and become living examples of the effects of having a peaceful mind. More importantly, we grow to be “Human Change Agents” affecting both directly and indirectly everything around us in a most positive way. Any Revolution consists of “Rebels” and this Revolution is no exception. We encourage, Peace Rebels to step outside the box, challenge conventional wisdom, and make a difference in the world around them. This done through various methods of attaining peace through meditation, keeping ourselves and surroundings free of pollution, always being mindful of our thoughts and actions and other ways. Mediation is also a way of connecting with our inborn positive traits that can make a difference if allowed to grow and will give us inner peace that is the source of the greater peace that will truly change the world we live in. Peace Revolution is therefore committed in making and assisting peace builders from all over the world, to discover newer heights and horizons of peace and harmony in themselves so that they can achieve whatever they set their minds to and will continue to affect the world wherever they are going to be in the coming decades and will definitely leave this world to be a much better and peaceful place than it is today. A summary of topics we address regarding the MDGs and Peace Building is as follows;
Peace – the foundation of building anything positive Inner Peace Self development Meditation Discipline and mindfulness Outer Peace Being role models Compassion Agents of change Peace building Encourage sharing, loving and kindness Balance between surplus and shortage Care of all living beings Creation of environment for achievement of MDGS and peaceful societies