About 120 students from Years 7 to 10 will be involved in making prosthetic hands for mine victims in other countries as part of a two-day leadership camp at Wooglemai Environmental Education Centre (EEC) near Camden. 

Bowral High School deputy principal John Staats said the project was a perfect fit for a leadership camp.

“We first developed our student leadership program, Speak Act Lead, four years ago,” Mr Staats said.

“It grew out of a need to engage and empower students, to give them a voice and show that they have the power to make a positive difference in their world. 

“This year our Speak Act Lead focus is on ‘kindness’ and it will be a whole school community project called ‘the 40 Day Kindness Project (40DayKP).

“We believe this project could show students how they can make a difference by doing something positive for someone else. 

“We were looking for something global and a way to make an impact and we were very excited when we came across Helping Hands. Our students are making twenty hands. That’s twenty lives transformed by an act of kindness performed to a complete stranger.”

Groups of six students will work together to construct each hand. In some cases they will only be able to use one hand which will necessitate teamwork between students and replicate the challenges mine victims face when they lose a limb.

Mr Staats said the 40DayKP and leadership camp would also have positive impacts back at school where students would be encouraged to do five random acts of kindness per day for six weeks.

“We want to make kindness a habit for these students and in 40 days you can develop new habits if you practise them regularly,” he said.

Students will be taking part in camps on August 25 and 26 at Wooglemai EEC and again on September 15 and 16.