Sacred Heart has hearts for Orangutan
Sacred Heart School in Fitzroy, Melbourne, chatted with Daniel and William about their orangutan quest. Sacred Heart is an amazing school with 115 students located right in the heart of the housing commission towers, a community of great cultural diversity. They were featured recently on SBS World News for their efforts in remote learning.
Studying Sustainability
Their year 5/6 students are currently using ‘Fight for Survival‘ as a key text in their study of the environment focusing on sustainability and how they can protect and save our planet.
As the students at Sacred Heart are back to remote learning, their teacher, Mary McCormick, asked Daniel and William to join them on a Google Meet chat to talk with the students about their quest to save the critically endangered orangutans. With 30 students and 3 teachers ready to chat, Daniel and William answered many questions that the students had prepared for them. From, “Why did you choose orangutans to save?“, “Why are the feeding stations needed?” and “What are the alternatives to using products with palm oil and, as consumers, how do we reduce the need for palm oil?“. The students had so many great questions and the boys were able to share with the students links to help them further with their studies;
- Palm Oil Investigations (POI)
- Don’t Palm Us Off – Zoos Victoria
- Adopting Orangutans with The Orangutan Project
Art for Orangutans
Daniel and William let the students know about a new initiative from The Orangutan Project called Orang-ARTan, an art competition for students to help the orangutans. You can enter individually or as a class group with great prizes. All registration fees go directly to the care of orangutans who still need our help more than ever with this global pandemic. Registration has closed for this competition.

As orangutans share 97% of our DNA they are vulnerable to human respiratory diseases, so when Coronavirus became a global pandemic, the Care Centres in Borneo have gone into lockdown with all staff wearing personal protective equipment such as masks, face shields, gloves and protective clothing when in direct contact with the orangutans in an attempt to protect the orangutans from this virus.
The Google Chat was a great success and ended with the School Captains thanking Daniel and William for their time and being part of this amazing chat. One student had the teachers in tears as she said, “Thank you Daniel and William, you have inspired me to be better!“.
What a way to end a chat… amazing ! Thank you Sacred Heart.