Written by Rod Lewis
Council Member – Ballarat Diocese
Catholic School Parents Victoria

In August CSPV inducted the newest member representing parents from Ballarat, Mr Rod Lewis. In the reflection below, Rod discusses his decision to join CSPV as a parent representative and his first event as a representative, the launch of the Project Rockit Digital Ambassador program.

I chose to join the CSPV as I am passionate Catholic parent of 2 children James aged 10 and Emily aged 12 in the Catholic Education system. In joining CSPV, I hope to provide a positive contribution so that my kids along with other families can continue to enjoy a rewarding, safe and progressive Catholic education experience.  

In the theme of child safety, I recently attended the launch in Melbourne of an exciting
$1 million funded collaboration between Facebook and Instagram called the “Project Rockit Digital Ambassadors Program”.

Project Rockit was launched in 2006 by Rosie and Lucy Thomas, two Australian sisters who saw the opportunity to create real social change by tackling the issue of bullying in school communities.

It is a youth-driven movement against cyber bullying, their passionate and diverse young team is driven by the vision of a world where kindness and respect thrive over bullying, hate and prejudice and all young people are free to realise their potential.

There are 3 stages to the program including:
Stage 1: Events to unite young people
Stage 2: Plug into Online Action Hub
Stage 3: Build Social Movement Against Bullying

Schools can nominate to register for the program next year, nominate student/s to be Digital Ambassadors within their student group and more information can be found via the following link online below:

I also had the opportunity to meet the Honourable Member for Wannon, Victoria and Minister for Education, the Hon Dan Tehan MP who attended the launch.

It was a very positive engagement with the Minister who when speaking at the launch encouraged all schools nationwide to engage in the Project Rockit Digital Ambassador Program. The Minister was very accommodating of his time to speak with me and appreciated the attendance of a CSPV representative so we, as parents, can learn from the benefits of this online initiative between Facebook and Instagram to tackle cyber bullying for the children in our sector of education in Australia.