HOMESTEAD - USA – NEW OFFICIAL DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER: The Board of Directors of the “Centro Educativo St. John Baptist de La Salle” of HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA-USA, has decided in this month of February, 2007 to officially name Ms. Maggie Sweeney as Official Director of the Center.

Ms. Maggie is a former student of the Brothers of Minnesota having graduated from their De La Salle High School in 1999. In 2004, she received her university degree with studies in Justice and Peace from St. Thomas University.

She worked as a volunteer in the Americorps National Civilian Community Corps for the 2000-2201 year and with several community organizations during the following years. She spent a month as a volunteer in Honduras. She also traveled to Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and Morocco and studied for one semester in the Dominican Republic. After graduating she went to Oakland, California to work for the 2004-2005 school year as a tutor in the Lasallian Center for Educational Opportunities (LEO Center). Later still she was a teacher at the San Miguel Middle School, Minneapolis, Minnesota where she taught English, Spanish and physical education in the 2005-2006 school year.

She will be with us until December of 2007 and will prepare the continued presence of the Lasallian Volunteers of the USA in our Center. At the present time we also have with us for several months Ms. Adriana García, a De La Salle volunteer from Mexico who shares with Maggie all the classes.
^{(José Manuel Dorado)}

HENLEY BEACH – AUSTRALIA - OUTREACH EDUCATION PROGRAMME: Rina Onzi and Zahir Said (pictured) are two very proud students having recently graduated from Year 12 at St Michael’s College. Rina and Zahir are the first students to have completed Year 12 through St Michael’s Outreach Education Programme for new arrivals.

Rina left Sudan in 2001 with her mother and brothers after her father disappeared. The family moved first to Egypt before the United Nations arranged for them to come to Australia. Rina has spent the past two years at St Michael’s College. Her ambition has always been to become a nurse, and she is currently exploring pathways into Nursing.

Zahir has spent the past three years at St Michaels College, having come from Baxter Detention Centre. Zahir was living in Afghanistan with his parents under the Taliban regime. Zahir’s father, afraid that his son’s life would be at great risk from the Taliban, arranged for a smuggler to take his son to Pakistan, then Indonesia where he was put on a boat which eventually arrived in Australia. He was eleven years old when he left Afghanistan. Zahir, a personable and engaging young man, has worked hard to overcome so many difficulties, and has now gained a placement at TAFE to study Business Marketing.

St Michael’s College, through their Outreach Education Programme, continue to educate and support a number of students who, through political turmoil, have been displaced from their country of origin.
^{(Mrs Jillian Huntley, Coordinator of Student Services )}

If you have news notes that you would like us to consider publishing, please email us:
lasallew@lasalle.org