I regularly and frequently liaise with the Community Security Group (CSG), who work so hard to keep Carmel staff and students safe as well as working in the community, with the same aims. But a question from a Carmel grandparent this week necessitated my calling CSG to check out some facts.

The grandparent was asking about self-defence opportunities for students. I knew that our Year 10 and 11 students benefit from self-defence classes during Physical Education lessons and that CSG visit the School to provide the training for this, but I was entirely unaware of the scale of the training opportunities outside this. I learnt that during 2024, CSG trainers completed 269 man hours (sic!) of self-defence and other training for community members. This included training parents, students and groups of people from various Jewish community organisations; it does not include the regular hours of training put in by CSG staff themselves 鈥� this is just for community members.

And if that were not impressive enough, so far this year, by August 2025, 668 man hours of community training have already taken place, in areas including self-defence, first aid, Women鈥檚 Krav Maga and e-Safety. So in half a year, CSG has already smashed the number of hours they provided last year. It was good to be able to provide these statistics to the interested grandparent and to understand the significant commitment that CSG makes to our community in this way. Clearly CSG understands the importance of equipping the Perth Jewish community to deal with the anti-semitism that is unfortunately being encountered. An anticipated quadrupling of self-defence and security training to non-CSG people will take place during 2025 鈥� impressive by any standards.

I think it's important to point these things out, so that we do not take this service for granted. We can reinforce our gratitude to CSG by remembering to thank them as we encounter them during our daily work and lives. The number of people who give their time and expertise to CSG is phenomenal and enables them to achieve their mission - 鈥減rotecting Jewish life and the Jewish way of life鈥�. To them we are sincerely grateful.

Anyone who has a group interested in community training opportunities should make contact with CSG via office@csgwa.org.au

Shabbat shalom.

Dr Julie Harris

Principal