3 minute read
Girls by Girls
JAYA REDDY
COMMUNICATIONS/ SRC CAPTAIN 2019–2020
GIRLS BY GIRLS
OUR 2019–2020 COMMUNICATIONS/ SRC CAPTAIN, JAYA REDDY, SHARES HER TAKE ON WOMEN AND LEADERSHIP.
I was lucky enough to have the honour of leading the Student Representative Council and its initiatives throughout my senior year. This allowed me to reflect on my own experience with leadership as well as the importance of ‘girl’ leadership. From the SRC Cup to Tuesday Trivia and R U OK? Day, the SRC was resourceful in changing our event formats to suit the COVID-19 context. We successfully brought the Loreto Normanhurst community together, raising awareness about the value of maintaining communication and connections with each other.
Supergirl Week celebrated its fifth anniversary, emphasising the importance of using your stance in society to offer a helping hand to girls around the world who need support to get back up on their feet and keep going. These events and initiatives ran smoothly due to the combined efforts of the SRC, which includes girls from Years 9 to 12. The SRC team really highlighted just how intelligent and innovative girls’ minds are. If the world were more open to these beautiful minds, the possibilities of the future would be limitless as each person has individual strengths and quirks that bring something unique to the world.
When reflecting on what leadership has looked like for me at Loreto, it has always been about standing by other girls, all with different ideas, from different ages, different backgrounds. It has been about putting our strengths and weaknesses together to build a community of people who support and listen to each other. Leadership isn’t a position we use to get our way or get personal fulfillment. Leadership is about collaborating and communicating to improve the ‘today’ we are living in. Leadership requires patience; accepting failures but allowing yourself to learn from them and to face challenges head on. Leadership isn’t granted when you become a Year 12 student or when you are handed a badge. You do not need these things to become a leader. At the core of leadership is a leader’s intention.
We see pockets of leadership throughout Loreto daily. We see it in our class debates, Year 7 sporting games, school carnivals and so much more. Most importantly, we see it when we see ‘girls by girls;’ girls standing by each other, for each other.
Thank you to the Class of 2020, the wider Loreto community and the SRC for giving me the opportunity to tackle the challenge it is to be a leader.
WOMEN OF INFLUENCE EVENING
Held in March, in the same week as International Women’s Day, our Women of Influence Evening demonstrated female leadership and cooperation in action. We were honoured to welcome Genevieve Jacobs (’84), Angela Burford (’09), Grace Murray (’09) and Camilla Ward (nee McKenzie, ’90), each of prominence in their respective fields. They spoke passionately about their careers in rural and regional communities in the arts, journalism, emergency and social services and primary industry. Thank you to our special guests for their powerful words and for sharing with our community an inspirational example of felicitous and intentional servant leadership.
CELEBRATING A LORETO WOMAN OF LEADERSHIP
Dr Leoni Degenhardt AM
We wish to express joyous congratulations to Dr Leoni Degenhardt, who was acknowledged in the 2020 Australia Day Honours List with a Member of the Order of Australia award for significant service to education. Dr Degenhardt served for fourteen years as the first lay principal of Loreto Normanhurst, commencing in 1994. A Loreto pioneer of holistic education, she is renowned for leading the development of the Loreto Normanhurst Student Growth Model and FACE Curriculum, and is the current Chair of Mary Ward International Australia. The Dr Leoni Degenhardt Award for Distinguished Achievement in Holistic Learning is presented annually in her honour to a Year 10 student who is passionate about learning and building community.
