International Women’s Day @ Tintern

In honour of International Women’s Day on Wednesday 8 March we hosted many exciting events over the week for both our students, stall and wider community. 

We were pleased to welcome many Community members, including current and past families and Alumni, to our IWD breakfast. Our key note speaker was Madeline Townsend (Class of 2008) who shared her brave story of how she survived her rare cancer. 

The Tintern community, hearing about Madeline’s bravery and strength, donated to Madeline’s Team ‘Spirit of the Dragon’ for the Kosi Challenge, raising funds for Rare Cancers Australia. The Tintern Community together raised $1,819.70, Madeline thanks our community on behalf of Rare Cancers Australia. 

For our International Women’s Day Assembly the theme was #Embrace#Equity. Our Student Leaders spoke to their mothers/grandmothers:

Our Faith Captains Mimi Coglan and Isaac Lin, led the prayer but also provided a thought-provoking speech on embracing equity, below is an extract of the speech:

“As we open a discussion about embracing equity within life, it’s important to clearly define what equity means to you. For me, equity is all about the concept of fairness and giving. It is to show your humanity through your actions, or as we better know it- Factis Non Verbis.  

I wish I could come on stage and discuss purely positive things, but to embrace equity, I find myself having to acknowledge the violations of women’s rights around the world. In 2022, the world witnessed the Taliban re-assert itself as the government of Afghanistan, and with this they brought a set of new rules for women. Females cannot attend school past year six, they cannot leave the house without a male escort, girls as young as thirteen are legally allowed to be married off to a man of any age, and women are no longer allowed to show their face in public.  

Other violations of rights have been seen within the past few years, including overturning of reproductive rights and mass violence in Iran.  

For International Women’s Day, I want to acknowledge that sometimes those who are in a less fortunate position must be treated differently to be treated equally. This does not just apply to third world countries, in Australia we only recently saw the abolition of the pink tax, there is still gender bias in the workforce, and wage gaps prevail.  

Jesus teaches that despite the bias of humanity against one another, all are seen as equal, created in Gods image. The Bible teaches that despite the inequality which is still seen throughout society, Jesus was fighting for women’s rights 2000 years ago. Allowing women to be the first to witness the resurrection and encouraging women to become educated.   

The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is ‘Embracing Equity’, for our community, this can look like inviting everyone to play together on the oval, or doing projects with people you normally wouldn’t. Having an open and ever-growing mindset. Even something as simple as saying ‘Hi’ to people in the hallways. Strive to embrace ‘Factis non Verbis’, show your support for embracing equity not just by your words, but also your deeds. Just because we learn separately, we don’t need to act separately.  

We can encourage positive change for women’s equity, but we also remember the world God wanted us to have, a world where women and all people are embraced.  

Let us pray,

Gracious God,

We pray for the smooth celebration of International Women’s Day and all people who continue to fight for equity. Provide, O Lord our protector, strength, and resilience for those who are oppressed and seeking equity. Allow us to embrace equity and love one another as we would love ourselves. Amen.”