Testimonials
“When it came time to expand the service program at the Canberra Grammar School, we looked to George Huitker to provide guidance, advice, inspiration and student training/presentations. With his wealth of experience, ethically sound approach and engaging personality, George was able to provide us with insightful and practical solutions to help us implement our now thriving service program. As an example of his work with us, George has run numerous invaluable training sessions for our team of Y11 students before taking on the role of full-time carers for the CGS Sony Foundation holiday Camp - a residential camp for children with disabilities. After a session with George, Students unanimously report feeling well informed, inspired and ready to serve.”
— Steve Allen
Teacher, Canberra Grammar School, ACT
“For over a decade, George Huitker has brought high school and university students, and even his band Junk Sculpture, to Minimbah Aboriginal School to walk and work alongside our staff, students and wider community. His ability to produce a program that crosses divides of opportunity and experience is very apparent. His participants are well prepared and highly sensitive to the complex needs of our own students from K to Year 6, and they develop relationships with both the students and staff that are respectful and in some case long-term in influence. I support his plans for a national centre for service learning so that other schools and partner organisations/communities might benefit from the life-affirming programs, philosophies and approach to learning that we have been fortunate to experience in Armidale.”
— Jenny Brown
Principal, Minimbah Preschool, Primary School Aboriginal Corporation
“There are a few fundamentals to best practice Service-Learning. They include knowing the people you wish to serve; knowing the students you send; honouring the dignity of both; listening with the ears of the heart. George Huitker has been my teacher in these essential arts. It is not a competition, but no one is better. I am a follower of Jesus and his way of loving your neighbour and walking alongside the least, last, let down and cast aside. Huitker is a remarkably effective teacher of this practice and a steady, fearless mentor of authenticity. I am a better teacher and priest as a result.”
— Richard Browning
Director of Mission, Anglican Schools Commission, Anglican Church Southern Queensland
While service-learning in many schools is treated as just another course to be completed, this is never the case when George Huitker is involved… One of the programmes George runs with his Year 9/10 students is Dream Cricket for children aged 6-10 with a disability, whereby his students teach the 6–10 year-olds how they can learn to play a specially modified game of cricket, thereby greatly enhancing their wellbeing and sense of self-respect… George’s ability to lead and inspire is such that after two hours of activity the Year 9/10s are wholly committed to the programme – to the extent that they invariably come back for more – and the 6-10 year-olds have all adopted the Year 9/10s as elder siblings. The Rotarians and School Staff who invariably participate in these programmes respond in a similarly positive fashion to George’s inspirational leadership.
Demonstrably George Huitker is a man of many parts: an inspiring leader, a thinker, a writer, a singer, a man of action. Truly a Renaissance man. Most importantly he is a man who has the drive and the capacity to inspire in others the need to recognise the many inequalities that afflict our society and which are in our power to remedy. In recognition of the outstanding contribution that George Huitker has made to DreamCricket in particular and the enhancement of service-learning activities throughout the ACT and region, he was awarded the Paul Harris Fellow award by Rotary International.
— Commodore A J Lyall MBE Royal Navy
Dream Cricket Coordinator for Sunrise Rotary, ACT
“The continuing success of our school’s service partnership has been due not only to Cranleigh School's commitment to the program but through George’s ongoing connection, understanding and guidance of teenage high school students towards social responsibility within community. Through service activity with primary school children with disabilities and under the oversight of George, the young people involved from both schools have built respectful and lasting relationships whilst discovering skills and levels of resilience they did not know they had.”
— Kylie Croke
Principal, Cranleigh School, Canberra
“I will never forget the first time I heard George sing "Near Myall Creek." With beautiful music, the song hits a sombre chord by reminding us of the darker - and often neglected - side of Australian history, urging us all to dig deeper beyond the 'truths' we've long been taught. Steeped in community, rich in lyrics, George's music inspires us all to study the past, have a more honest engagement with it and in doing so help create a more equitable society. His songs further enhance the service learning experience for his students, promoting authentic and deeper understanding of the people they walk alongside and their unique past.”
— Michael Sheldrick
Co-Founder and Chief Policy, Impact and Government Affairs Officer, Global Citizen
“George Huitker guided us each and every day to be the best versions of ourselves. Through the lens of service learning we had the opportunity to be part of something bigger than just an individual. George taught me the single most important thing I need to know in my job today: the meaning and value of ‘support’ and I will carry that with me for the rest of my career. It was these experiences and under his guidance of that has led to me to undertake a Certificate IV in DIsability at CIT and have been working with Sharing Places supporting adults with high needs. I am so thankful for H – his compassion for others, care for the wider community and willingness to go above and beyond have helped me to see a bigger picture in relation to our world and I will forever be grateful.”
—Ashleigh Markovic
Former student and Disability Support Worker
I first heard George speak at an AHISA conference where he was sharing better practice and inspiring his audience. It was from his presentation that I obtained a clearer understanding of service learning and I have continued to reach out to George as our school developed its program. At the core, is George’s drive to help other professionals by walking alongside in much the same way we encourage our students to do. Always inspiring, through public speaking, music and song, his service learners are always looking to return. I am forever grateful for George’s inclusive nature especially with my school’s indigenous programs..
— Brad Walker
Director of Service Learning, Somerset College, Gold Coast, Queensland
I have known George for nine years, for seven of which he was directly involved with my two sons in Service Learning, across a wide range of interests. These included a focus on regular visits to assist at schools in Gamilaraay country in north-western New South Wales, which is a particular passion of George's; RAS: Radford Awareness and Service and the Black Mountain specialist school; Get Set mentoring of younger students and the school’s male leadership program, teamSUPPORT; facilitating the RAID (Recreational Activity for people with an Intellectual Disability) Basketball and organising and performing at the highly regarded Dirrum Conference.
He put all these programs in place and has ensured that they are consolidated and improved on year after year, an extremely important aspect of delivery so that the various partners in the programs know and can trust that there will be continuity and reliability, as well as excellence, in their provision. The Centre for Service Learning will further this goal by ensuring there is support well beyond the school environment.
George's tireless and extraordinary levels of energy and passion in pursuing the highest levels of excellence and continuity in all these areas and more are reflected at not only the organisational level but also the individual level, with his abilities as a mentor, organiser and inspirer of young people.
My two boys benefited enormously from his guidance, encouragement and inspirational example. They participated actively and enthusiastically in all the above programs and more, choosing to continue to do so beyond their school years. As examples of his ability to deliver in Service Learning, his positive impact can perhaps be measured by my younger son being awarded the Order of Australia Association Individual Student Medallion for Sustained Outstanding Leadership in his final year at school, and my older son running the Adventure Programs at Grouse Mountain, Vancouver Canada with 200 adolescent and younger children, many of whom were children with special needs. It is unlikely either of these would have occurred without George's influence.
George's exceptional passion for and dedication to Service Learning, and his ability to deliver, lead and inspire within that sphere over many years, has been a hugely positive influence on countless participants on both sides of the programs, and I trust the new Centre for Service Learning will be able to enhance and progress this focus far into the future.
—Dr Peta Blake
Commander RAN (ret’d), BDS MSc (Dist), mother of two young service learning enthusiasts
For me, the success of George’s programs hinge on three key insights:
- service learning is relational with life shaping outcomes only achieved where genuine relationships are formed;
- effective service only occurs after relationships are established and the support required emerges out of respectful listening (or in George’s own words: ‘never to, not for, but with people’); and
- perhaps most critical of all, especially with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, returning, longevity. This does not mean the same students have to return each year, although some former Radford students have continued returning to Myall Creek after leaving school, but the school as a community is committed to continuing engagement with its program and relationships formed.
These key markers have found clear expression in the Radford College program held on the Northern Tablelands and at the Friends of Myall Creek Memorial, as evidenced by the program’s success. Since 2016, Radford College has further supplemented that engagement with additional trips by senior students to participate in the annual commemoration for the Myall Creek Memorial held on the June long weekend each year. (The massacre occurred on 10 June 1838).
A key feature of the annual gathering is involvement of local school communities in the commemoration, but also schools from further afield including Radford College in Canberra, from Newcastle, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Toowoomba. George’s experience has been very helpful in coordinating the various school communities’ involvement in the commemoration. In view of the above I am delighted to commend George Huitker and his planned Australian Centre for Service Learning to any school communities or other organisations keen to engage in ‘service learning’
—Ivan Roberts
Executive Officer, Friends of Myall Creek Memorial
Awards for George Huitker
Black Mountain & Cranleigh School Partnership (various roles since 1989)
· Nominee, ACT Public Education Awards, Outstanding Partnership of the Year: Radford College and Cranleigh School, 2018
· Winner, Order of Australia Association Awards: School Citizenship & Community Service, 2009
The Gamilaraay Trips Program (since 2011), including annual attendance and voluntary assistance at the annual Myall Creek Commemoration
· Winner, Order of Australia Association Awards: Citizenship & Service, 2015
teamSUPPORT Program (Since 2005)
· Winner, Australian Government National Volunteer Award, Under 25 Team Award), 2011
· Winner, Order of Australia Association Awards: School Citizenship & Community Service, 2010
RAID (Recreational Activity for people with an Intellectual Disability) Basketball: Radford College Liaison since 2005)
· Highly Commended, Young Canberra Citizen of the Year Awards, 2016
· Winner, YMCA National Volunteers, 2011
2019 Australian Education Awards:
· Finalist, Best Co-curriculum Program (Service)
2018 Keynote Address at the 2018 Transforming Service Conference in Melbourne
2017 Rotary Paul Harris Fellow Award for contributions to Service and Service Learning from Rotary International
2006 ACT Writing & Publishing Awards for How To Succeed Without Really Winning
(Ginninderra Press). George is also the author of two memoirs on Service Learning:
Little Life and Big Life.