Penola High School has been announced as a successful recipient of the Flinders University Rural and Remote Health Community Partnership Grant 2021 round.
Flinders University Rural Health SA Community Engagement and Communication Officer Elspeth Radford presented a $1490 donation to Penola High School Principal Lesley Okholm last week which will go towards a Community Mentor program to bring adults and students together who share similar interests or passions and inspire a positive future in careers or pathways.
Governing Council community representative Anne Johnson proposed the Community Mentor program, which will be launched when COVID restrictions in schools are further relaxed.
“The world we live in can be very complex to navigate, especially for our young people and often they require assistance to see a positive future,” Ms Okholm said.
“Many young people do not have a significant adult to whom they can turn to talk to, question and practise good relationships with.”
The Community Mentor program will involve weekly or fortnightly ‘catch-ups’, which could entail anything from a sharing and engaging in a hobby, going for a walk, having a conversation or reading together.
These catch-ups aim to build and maintain strong relationships and establish connections between the students and the successful adults.
“We feel privileged that we have been able to get the grant because it does enable us to do some connecting with the community and our students that we could not have done otherwise,” Ms Okholm said.
