A group of primary school students in Melbourne have called on the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to release children from detention centres and encouraged school students from around Australia to support their campaign.
At a school assembly at St Bernard’s Primary school in Coburg East, attended by the Greens senator Janet Rice, the pupils displayed a colourful chain they had made out of individual links of paper, which has been placed on the school fence as a show of support for asylum seekers.
They are encouraging other schools to do the same as part of their project, Links, Not Chains.
“I’ll be able to take your message back to Canberra with me,” Rice promised the students at the assembly on Wednesday.
“I’m not part of the government and I can’t tell the government what to do, unfortunately. But the people who can tell the government what to do are all of you and you can send a very strong message that these children should be allowed to be free.”
Year 5 and 6 students from St Bernard’s addressed parents, teachers and the senator.
Student Sienna Galioto told them: “We at St Bernard’s want all children seeking asylum to be released from detention centres in Australia and Nauru.
“We are the first school in Australia to do this and we hope many others will follow our example.”
Another student, Caterina Warrick, told her peers that there were rights that every child should have, including the right to belong to a religion and believe in their own god.
“They have the right to have a home or shelter and an adult to take care and support them,” she said.
“They deserve an education and medical attention. They are also entitled to have a voice and be heard, to have freedom and live a happy, healthy, safe life.
“Most of all, every child has a right to protection from any violence and the right to seek asylum in another country if you are being persecuted in your own.”
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