TAFE carpentry students photographed with ten-year-old Alexia Charstone for whom they built a cubbyhouse in 2010

A carpentry class of migrant students at Swinburne TAFE have built two cubbyhouses for ten-year-old Alexia Charstone, a little girl with chronic epilepsy. One cubby is for Alexia to use, and the other will be auctioned off to provide financial assistance. Students from Burma, Russia, Iran and Italy built the cubby houses over the eleven week course at Swinburne TAFE’s Croydon campus, which they graduated from on 10 June. They chose to support Alexia after an appeal was published in the Maroondah Leader seeking assistance from the community to buy her medical supplies and a seizure alarm dog. The carpentry course at Swinburne TAFE’s School of Engineering, Technology and Trades was designed to provide recently arrived migrants with a range of skills. Outcomes for the students have been very positive—fourteen of the fifteen students have gone on to further study at Swinburne, while one student has found employment with a carpentry company. Photograph appeared in the Media Centre Release: ‘Students give hope to girl with epilepsy’, on 15 June 2010