‘We’ve done a lot of healing’: Mogo kids more resilient than ever five years on from Black Summer
Where flames once licked at the fence line, chickens cluck as kids pick snow peas from the garden. The families of Mogo Public School still carry trauma from Black Summer, but students are all smiles as they get ready to go back to class.
NSW
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Kindergarten student Lucas Janssen is all smiles because this year he’s finally joining his older sister Kaylee Ziegler-Bass at a school far from the ordinary, in a town still haunted by the trauma of the Black Summer bushfires.
Four hours south of Sydney, Mogo Public School only has 25 other students. Most urban primary school have more students in a single class than principal-slash-Kindy teacher Lynn Dallas has in her entire school.
Born and bred in nearby Moruya, Ms Dallas arrived at Mogo PS in 2022 after stints teaching in Alice Springs and Wollongong. In Mogo, she found children, parents and teachers still mourning the loss of homes, land and irreplaceable belongings reduced to ashes two years prior.
“We’ve done a lot of healing, concentrating on resilience and working … as a small school and as a whole school community,” Ms Dallas said.
“Some of our students had lost their houses, some staff lost their houses and had to rebuild or were displaced – everyone had grief of some sort.
“A lot of the kids had a lot of trauma, not just from the fires but also the floods and then Covid, so it’s been a wonderful experience to see them become more confident and more resilient.”
In the intervening years, the school has become a community hub, featuring a garage converted to a combined music workshop, kitchen and a laundry room for families who need access to a washer and dryer.
Where flames once licked at the fence line, chickens now cluck happily in their coop as kids pick snow peas in the veggie garden.
Children who would never before have picked up a musical instrument or sing, much less perform in front of others, are now confident to “get up in front of their parents – and strangers” and play for them, including two “very, very shy” young boys.
“I couldn’t believe it, if you had told me that they were going to get up and sing an Archie Roach song I would have said ‘no way, that’s impossible’, but they did it, and they loved it,” their proud principal said.
Having successfully applied for a NSW Department of Education grant, the school will also have a hall built this year to replace its tiny existing performance and presentation space, the COLA, which caused gatherings to be cancelled in bad weather.
The new building will also come with solar panels, a generator, a disabled toilet, a shower and an outdoor barbecue area – “so if the fires do happen again, it’s a place that our community can go to be safe,” Ms Dallas said.
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