Shalvey bread – sliced, white, and baked daily in the bakery opposite the high school – is unanimously declared the ‘best bread in the world’ by Shalvey’s youth. Shalvey BreAd reflects the pride and affection these students have for their community and their determination to share this hometown pride with the wider world.
Throughout 2019, a group of dedicated students from Chifley College, Shalvey Campus have worked together to document their version of Shalvey and other Mount Druitt suburbs through a series of creative writing workshops, photography sessions, and digital storytelling methods that explore their own personal aspirations and stories and those of their peers and others who live in Shalvey and surrounds.
As part of these workshops students met with guest speakers. Writer and television presenter Benjamin Law came to visit the school and Seeing him relate his story to their lives, and hearing him talk through how he came to understand that his family’s story as a quintessential, if underrepresented, Australian story was fantastic.
Ben asked students to write a quick story about themselves – to identify a thing about their body that is unique to them, and to talk about what made this feature special, and how it made them feel now. All students happily wrote on this topic, with many talking about how proud they were of features relating back to their family heritage.

Muhammad, from the Shalvey BreAd program, stood up and told us the story of how he once broke a window with his foot, complete with an excited reenactment and impression of his mother. He had the class in stitches. You can read these stories in the Publications section of this website.
Students from year ten also attended an excursion to Story Factory Parramatta, where they heard from Shakthidharan Sivanathan, about his time spent researching and writing the play Counting and Cracking, about the history of Sri Lanka and his own family’s part in the civil war and diaspora experience. Students were invited to consider which communities they were a part of, from hometown to sporting teams, class groups and cultural background, and decide what they would like to explain about these communities to wider world. Students wrote about Mt Druitt, working as a teenager, attending church, and being part of the Enablers, a group of students dedicated to learning, extending themselves, and supporting others.

The work of this group, alongside that of year seven students who took part in student devised workshops, is shared on this site for you to experience and enjoy.
A huge thanks to the students at Chifley College Shalvey Campus who contributed to this program, especially Amour, Atoc, Ben, Charlize, Fapiola, Jamie, Mohammad, Sam, Sean, and Thomas.
Thank you to the staff at Chifley College Shalvey Campus, especially Amy Krisenthal.
Thank you to our guest speakers Benjamin Law and Shakthidharan Sivanathan.
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