We held our inaugural Awareness Week, hosting a number of activities to raise awareness of Rare Diseases and the children and families living with life-limiting conditions. Awareness Week and Rare Disease Day is significant for St Joseph’s as one of our students, Sam, is living with the life-limiting condition of Infantile Neuroaxonal Dystrophy (INAD). The video "Sam's Journey" was shared with the school. We are very grateful to John and Teena for putting this beautiful video together and wish to share it with all families.
Together with Sam’s family Awareness Week was planned around a Colour Fun Run fundraiser for Rare Disease Day. Wanting to support a cause that was close to Sam’s family, Hummingbird House was chosen as the beneficiary of the funds raised. We raised $1, 294.
I would like to thank all of our St Joseph’s families for generously supporting the Rare Disease Day Colour Fun Run.
The Colour Fun Run and our Awareness activities hold deeper meaning for our school community. They stem from our Catholic Identity, built on foundations of Catholic Social Teaching which offers a way of thinking, being and seeing the world. Last week it was important for staff to create links for the children between the Awareness Week activities and Catholic Social Justice, teaching that all people are made in the image of God and so possess an equal and inalienable worth. Because of this essential dignity, each person has a right to all that is needed to allow him or her to live their full potential as intended by God and that those who are vulnerable are cared for. Caritas and Project Compassion are further avenues to build awareness of Catholic Social Justice during this Lent Season.
