Hundreds of Australian high-school students are preparing to travel to Gallipoli to commemorate the 100th anniversary of ANZAC Day.
Some of the teenagers chosen for the government-funded trip were born overseas and said the ANZAC story gave them a strong sense of what it meant to be Australian.
Year 12 student Beverley Kaviya moved to Australia from Zimbabwe three years ago and said she felt privileged to be part of something so big.
"I really needed to know more about the country that I just moved to," she said. "[And] to know that it's not the way it is today because of anything else but because of the brave people who fought in World War I."
Beverley goes to Delany College in western Sydney along with Year 12 student Raphaella Chidiac, whose background is Lebanese.
Raphaella said she got involved to pay her resepcts to the many Australian soldiers who lost their lives.
"I see where Australia is at today and I know that it couldn't have been like this at all times," she said. "There is a background story, there is a history and I really wanted to explore that and the different personalities in that history."
NSW Minister for Communities Victor Dominello told SBS the ethnic diversity of students selected to travel to Gallipoli was significant.
"These are all different eyes that will look at the ANZAC experience and then, most importantly, bring those experiences back into their school and back into their community," he said.
Four-hundred students and teachers will participate in the one-week journey to Turkey, which is being funded by Commonwealth and state governments.
The students and teachers will visit historical sites and World War I battlefields, and attend the Anzac Day Dawn Service at Gallipoli and the Australian Service at Lone Pine.
Share
