Rachel
Centre Education
Logan, Qld, Australia
The Flexible Learning Centre Network was shocked at the sudden death of Rachel MacAulay, a former student and current staff member of the Centre Education Programme, Kingston.
The former Coordinator and now National Administrator Youth +, Dale Murray and the current coordinator, Lorraine Browne, have written moving tributes to Rachel. I believe that both are worthy of being published in full.
Lorraine writes:
Our beloved friend and colleague Rachel MacAulay died this morning in a traffic accident. We received the news at Centre Ed just before midday.
Our loss is profound, both at a deeply personal and a professional level.
Rachel first came to Centre Ed as a student when she was 14 years old. We loved her immediately, and I think she also loved us because as she left waving her Year 10 Certificate on her way to complete a TAFE course in Youth Work, she told us in that inimitable Rachel-like way that she would be back!!
And several years later she indeed was back, to become a pivotal member of the Centre Ed community. .....VET Trainer, Special Needs expert assistant, youth worker extraordinaire, Touch Footy coach.....and most importantly, without a doubt the one most loved and respected by all of the young people at Centre Ed over those years.
There are many of you in the FLC community who will know Rachel from our Boonah gatherings, from PDF training, and from Edgework gatherings (she was the State representative). You may know of her courage in facing the adversities of her own life, her sense of fun, her vivacity, her willingness to do anything for a mate, her fierce passion for justice and fairness, and her unflagging energy to do whatever it takes to give young people a fair go.
I have never known anyone like her in my whole life.
This afternoon, after we had gathered young people at Centre to break to them the tragic news, after we had said a prayer together, after we had shared some thoughts and sang some songs, quietly and without a word one of the young men in Rachel's class stood up and made his way through the crowded room, followed just as soundlessly by seven other young men from the class and the football team. They walked quietly to their classroom that they shared with Rachel, sat in their seats at their desks and quietly sobbed.
The spirit of the universe continues to humble me.
Dale Writes
I had the very privileged role of offering Rachel her first job at Centre Ed. I also had the very privileged role of being one of her teachers in her early days at Centre.
Yesterday, on a visit to Centre, I spent about 15 minutes chatting with Rachel about the work she was doing with young people, about her ideas regarding the best way to run a part of course she wanted to teach, about her very deep commitment to working with young people and how she was going to focus on becoming a 'youth worker', you know "get the qualification" (in my mind and heart I was thinking you are the best youth worker I have meet in some 28 years of this work and no qualification will add to what you are doing right here and now,) I wish now I had said that, I wish I had told her how proud of her I was, I wish I could tell her how profound she has been on influencing my life, I wish I could express my deep gratitude of her commitment to the work we do, I wish I had said, "you are doing a really good job and thank you".
Friends we are going to miss Rach more than we will know, we are going to miss her laugh, her strength, her deep compassion and care.
Like you I feel a tremendous sense of loss and confusion. Like you I cannot understand why. Like you I seek support and strength from our community.
Friends it is with a very sad heart that I write to you in this time of great sadness.
Friends I encourage us all to talk to each other, support each other in this time of need.
Like Lorraine says " the spirit of the universe continues to humble me".
