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Saint Ignatius College Geelong
Saint Ignatius College Geelong
We were delighted to announce that the winner of the St Patrick’s Old Collegians Association (SPOCA) alumni award is Chloe McDowell,
Class of 2013 for her community work both locally and overseas which was presented by Jim Smith, President SPOCA at Mosaic 2017. Chloe responded with a few words, excerpts below- and some of her photographs.
“Since graduating I have spent the past four years at Australian Catholic University completing a Bachelor of Nursing and Bachelor of Paramedicine and will start my nursing career at The Royal Children’s Hospital in 2018.
During my time at university I have been provided with many opportunities to give back to not only the local Ballarat community but also communities overseas. At the beginning of 2016, I along with 20 other Nursing and Paramedicine students volunteered in Cambodia for 3 weeks. The majority of our time in Cambodia was spent in the town of Battambang, which has just under the same population as Geelong. Here we spent time working in local health clinics (as hospitals are very few and far between) that were staffed only by nurses providing a range of services from immunisations, basic check ups, distribution of basic medication such as panadol, pre-natal appointments, birthing and the care of women post birth. This is all done in 5 small rooms where the most up to date piece of equipment was a foetal heart monitor. All other equipment was out-dated, their only blood pressure cuff and stethoscope were long broken.
In the afternoons we spent time at a local village 30 minutes outside of Battambang, where the government has created an initiative for children to learn the English to provide more job opportunities for them in the future and to prevent them from having to work to support their family in the afternoons, even at the age of 8.
We also spent time at one of the local high schools and taught them about basic first aid - from how to treat cuts, burns, strains, insect bites and most importantly CPR.
I have had opportunities to coach Year 7&8 GISSA netball back at Saint Ignatius, coached netball at both Portarlington and Skipton Football Netball Clubs, been a first-aider for Walk for Johno, completed the Major Incident Medical Management and Support course, allowing me to be involved in large scale medical emergencies should one occur and received two scholarships from the George Alexander Foundation that supports student excellence in rural placements.
I believe that my time spent at Saint Ignatius helped to instill in me my desire to help, and teach individuals who do not have the same level of education, healthcare, accessibility and wealth of knowledge available to them at this present time.
Whilst studying at Saint Ignatius I always had the support and guidance to not only achieve well but to allow me to continue into my chosen career path and I don’t think that would have occurred without the help of Ms. Learmonth and Ms. Spencer.”
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