By ZARA CULL, Year 11, St Andrew’s Catholic College
ON Tuesday, November 12, Premier Campbell Newman announced the five school students who will be travelling to Gallipoli, as winners of the 2014 Premier’s Anzac Prize.
The Premier’s Anzac Prize gives five Queensland high school students a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience the Anzac tradition firsthand.
This year Jamal Hammett-Ryan, a Year 11 student at St Andrew’s Catholic College, was a winner for the 2014 trip.
The students will be immersing themselves in the Anzac spirit as they travel to the First World War battlefields of Turkey, France and Belgium as part of a two-week trip. The trip is a fully funded two-week study tour which allows the students to actively participate in the Anzac Day remembrance ceremony.
Applicants submitted multimedia presentations of two to five minutes on the Anzac spirit focusing on Australia’s involvement in wars and conflicts from Gallipoli through to the present day. They were asked to relate those experiences to positive values and activities in everyday life.
Queensland Education, Training and Employment Minister John-Paul Langbroek wished all students well for their trip and highly commended them for the time and effort they put into their entries. He said all submissions were outstanding.
The 2014 trip will be the second of three Premier’s Anzac Prize competitions being conducted by the State Government.
Jamal said recently in The Cairns Post that “when I think of the Defence Force in general, I always think of Anzac Day, it’s integrated into our culture”. Jamal is of Aboriginal descent and said his competition entry featured references to indigenous Australians during the war.
“In World War I, Indigenous people didn’t have many rights, but in the army they had a lot more rights. It was ahead of its time,” he said.
Jamal is looking forward to the trip and visiting Gallipoli for the Anzac Day service.
