Fellow law students! I am sure you have heard every joke under the sun about how similar you are to sharks, catfish, or a cold winter’s morning. Well this is a public service announcement. Break that mould and come and engage in something big.
Local Initiatives
Jonathon Worthington, QUT Law student The Big Lift bus provides you with an opportunity to act and feel like a human again, by engaging in needs-based volunteer activities in regional and remote Queensland. Big Lift is run by students, for students. The students organise multi-day bus trips to towns that need a little lift. This may come in the form of painting a community building, gardening at the retirement village, cleaning out a shed for the Bowls club, or helping somebody build a fence. You can help by taking a load off somebody’s mind for a day, or perhaps that was a job that would take them a month. The important thing is that you are there, showing you care. Listen to the stories and immerse yourself in a new community that may have different ideals, different beliefs and a different way of life to your own. The bus has racked up a few kilometres over the years. Stopping in at towns like Murgon,
Cherbourg, Dalby, Chinchilla, Theodore and Eidsvold. All of them have a different story to tell, from the impacts of coal seam gas, to the devastation and heartbreak of the “Protection” policies, and right through to the challenges facing high school teachers and principals. Jump on board the bus to become more informed about the country you live in. On that note, I would like to share a story from the 2015 end-of-year trip: Time slows in regional Queensland. Phones flash one bar or no bars. That doesn’t mean communication travels slow. The grapevine out here is much faster than the NBN will ever be.
The Big Lift bus pulls up to a broken down PCYC sports hall. A barbed wire fence surrounds the building. The windows are barred. Graffiti covers the walls. A bus of QUT students alone in the heart of Cherbourg. Ten minutes later a Holden ute pulls up
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