Student Voice
Last term, Year 12 student Tahmara Thomas led the Village Championship, which aimed at supporting Afghan refugee girls through raising funds, sharing Afghan culture and creating opportunities for friendships, ultimately promoting their settlement in Australia.
Tahmara hosted a wonderful day with music and food, Afghan stalls (including henna and kite making), inspirational speakers and finally – a football match to finish the day.
We interviewed Tahmara behind the scenes for more insight into her passion and inspiration behind her initiative.
What are you passionate about and why?
Personally, I am motivated by wanting to do my part to help others. I am especially passionate about promoting women, championing their issues, and providing them with the tools to become their own agents of change.
Will this project be continued in the future or is it more of a once-off event?
My team and I hope that this event is a transferable program. We hope we can continue it into the future and run it at other schools and organisations. We also hope to support other refugee groups in the future.
Does your partnership with KPMG possibly allow for more resonance to the broader community?
The sponsorship from KPMG has truly been a blessing and allowed us to have an even wider reach.
How can we further support this cause?
Continue to open your heart to those who aren’t necessarily in your immediate circle. Continue to help, raise awareness and help with funds. Continue to read up on what’s happening around the world. Be present, be empathetic, be compassionate. Open your hearts and continue the friendships and conversations that start on the day.
What inspired you to launch this initiative?
The main catalyst was sitting at the breakfast table and watching the morning news. Those heartbreaking scenes at Kabul airport of people grabbing onto airplanes and sending their babies over barbed wire really moved me. The more I read about the crisis in Afghanistan and especially how the women and girls were suffering, the more I wanted to do something about it. This was followed by a random conversation with our dentist who happened to be an Afghan refugee. Truly fate in a way.
Being at Pymble but also of a multicultural background, I am acutely aware of my privilege to go to such an amazing school. A privilege that not all girls my age have. I wanted to do something, to use the education that I’ve been blessed with to bring about change.
How do you aim to raise awareness? What message are you sending out to the school and broader community?
Through this day, my team and I hope to spread a greater awareness for the crisis in Afghanistan and more generally, the human rights issues people face across the world
I want to inspire other students to feel like if there is something they are truly passionate about, they can achieve it. You don’t have to wait to be an adult. And even though we are geographically removed from these hotspots in Afghanistan, we can still contribute in our small ways by taking action, raising awareness and empowering people who have been victims to various misfortunes. As those who are privileged, we have a duty to help.
My team and I want to enable women and girls to be agents of change to make the world a more equal and fairer place. We hope to give the Afghan girls involved in this program the tools and resources to not just survive in society, but truly thrive in it.
We want to create discourse and achieve intercultural understanding and enrichment through conversations and exposure. I am especially passionate about creating opportunities for Pymble students to extend past the ‘Pymble bubble’ and interact with people they may not have usually been able to meet. I hope that the friendships made through the three-day program will not only extend past the program but help the Afghan refugee girls to settle into Australia more easily.
When we watch news segments, it is easy to feel very distanced from the issues that we hear about. When given the opportunity to actually speak and meet the brave families who have endured the crisis in Afghanistan, the issue will become much more tangible. We hope this inspires our community to help and further support recent refugees in Australia.
