About Carmel

Carmel College is an all-girls college that provides an appropriate, supporting learning environment that provides countless academic, sporting and cultural oppurtunities and will shape your daughter into an influential Catholic woman. Our learning here at Carmel is interlaced with the teachings of the Gospel and, more specifically, the Mercy Values.

What is a Mercy Value?

A Mercy Value is a principle or standard that we should try to live by and follow in our everyday lives, based on the Gospel values of the Catholic faith. We as students at Carmel College go to a Mercy school as this school was founded in 1957 by the Sisters of Mercy, who incorporated the Scripture and specifically the attribute of Mercy, into girls' education. Here at Carmel College, we believe that Mercy is a call to action, to follow in the footsteps of Catherine McAuley, founder of the Sisters of Mercy, who made Mercy visible in the unjust society that she lived in, inspiring us as young women. At Carmel, we have five main Mercy Values;

1. Aroha - Compassion
2. Te Tapu O Te Tangata - Dignity
3. Awhinatanga - Service
4. Tika - Justice
5. Aroha Ki Te Rawa Kore - Care of the Poor and Vulnerable.

Find out more about Catherine McAuley and how she specifically demonstrated the Value of Service on the above two YouTube videos.

What is Service?

Service, defined by Google, is the action of helping or doing work for someone. The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us that everyone benefits from serving and being served by others. Here at Carmel, there is an expectation of service, especially for the poor and less fortunate; that we as students will 'see the need and make the difference' and 'walk the talk' of Mercy. There are several ways we can exhibit acts of service such as:

• Creating an environment of welcome and hospitality.
• Promoting quality care and excellence in teaching and learning.
• Encouraging and demonstrating team spirit.
• Showing openness to constructive criticism and feedback.

Boots/working boots are a common symbol used to represent Service. This is because the boots represent labour and also shows that, to act by the value of Service, you have to work hard to help those in need.

How do we display the value of Service?

Service can be displayed and found in many different forms and sizes in many situations and circumstances. We just need to be able to identify those situations and know how and when to take action in helping others.

Going to a school that caters for years 7-13, we can come across many different types of people. Not all of these people are going to be completely agreeable. Providing Service in this example can be standing up for someone who isn't being treated fairly, doing the right thing, or even standing up for yourself. More examples of service in our school environment can be inviting the quiet girl who sits by herself at lunchtime to join you or helping a fellow classmate that is struggling with their work. Service doesn't just have to be provided to our fellow students either, we can find ways of helping our teachers too, doing things such as offering to help carry something or clean up the classroom or even just thanking them after your lesson.

There are also going to be people in our larger society and community that need Service from others. Carmel, as a Mercy school, try to provide this Service in various ways such as;

• Every year, we are asked to bring along an item of food as part of our contribution to Food Bank. Food Bank then distributes the donated food to people in need in our community.
• As not all members of community are fortunate enough to afford Christmas presents and food especially around that time of the year, we as students, are asked to bring along items such as toys, gift sets etc. to donate. These items are made into gift baskets which are sent to certain families in our community, which is sure to bring much needed happiness and smiles among those families.
• Service doesn't just have to be provided through our school, there are many oppurtunities to help others through our local churches and other social organisations. Contributing to your church's large-scale humanitarian efforts, volunteering for things such as the church ochestra/choir or altar serving, or even cleaning up after masses.

So, as you can see, there are several ways of providing service in our community to bring smiles and make the lives of others better, accurately following in Catherine McAuley's footsteps.

On a larger scale, our world today is thriving with people of different races, religions and personalities. While there are many good things in our world today, there are equally many injustices such as poverty and terrorism. While we as Carmel girls obviusly can't directly attempt to sort out these universal issues, but as we are more fortunate and better off than the victims of these issues, there are ways we can support those who can aid those in need. Examples include;

• We occasionally have mufti days as a school and this involves every student bringing a gold coin donation. The money collected for those days usually goes towards a certain charity such as Caritas who have the capibility to provide aid to people in certain areas of the world.
• Along with our mufti days we have other events such as Pink Day and various other annual events that includes selling food and other goods as a fundraising event as the proceeds go to an organisation that uses the funds to help other people.

By helping to raise these funds, we are acting through the value of Service as, by using the funds we raise to help people, we can help to change the lives of those in need even if it is one small step at a time.

So, with all the examples provided above of how we, as a Catholic Mercy school, display and show the Mercy Value of Awhinatanga - Service to help others and make a difference in the world, you can see how sending your daughter here to Carmel College, will not only benefit her education and sporting aspirations, but also her understanding of moral values, especially of exhibiting Mercy.