Voices blog

When Marguerite and I arrived at the auditorium at the Romsey School in Hampshire, we entered a world of organised chaos. Like elves in a workshop, over 40 primary pupils guided by 20 of their secondary school peers were busily cutting, gluing, measuring, designing and fitting.

In the background, a projector rotated pictures of carnival festivities in Rio, Trinidad and Notting Hill to the drum beat of soca, while the walls were adorned with messages, such as “what is your cause?”, “what do you care about?” and “what do you want to say?”  These questions were answered at the end of the day when parents gathered in the hall for the colourful culmination, a carnival where students paraded the social issue or charity of their choice.

Heather, who works with Go Givers schools in Portsmouth and Southampton, organised a full day event where pupils from Awbridge Primary School, Portsmouth Schools Student Voice group representatives, the Go Givers Club from St. Joseph’s RC Primary School, and a network of home schooled children came together to choose an issue they care about and then create costumes and floats to represent their choice.  Using the history of carnival as a form of social organising, Heather worked in partnership with community artist, Jennie Rawles, to give the pupils an opportunity to voice their concerns creatively. The event piloted the “Senior Leader Teams” model where Year 9 students facilitated the process with the designing and costume-making skills they gained in their training session with Jennie.  The older students took their jobs seriously, whether it meant maintaining the safety standards of the glue guns, or patiently helping their primary-age counterparts cut around a tricky bit of material, or making sure everyone was happy with their final product.

As Jennie pointed out, the event “gives them a chance to be creative.  Most people think you have to be an artist to be creative, but children see things adults might not.  They can turn a scrap of material into a sleeve.”  From a cardboard box converted into a 2-person dog costume to represent the RSCPA, to an old fleece transformed into a polar bear trapped by melting ice caps, an effect of global warming, both pupils and students learned how to be resourceful, but also that fun and celebration can make a difference.

‘Dear Prime Minister,
I am sure you are thoroughly delighted to have this important job as the newly elected Prime Minister, although millions of people are counting on you to do an astonishing job’ writes Giacomo, age 11, in his letter to Number 10 reflecting on the gravity of the decision made today by all of us eligible to vote.

Giacomo is just one of the 342 children from across the country who entered the Go-Givers Election Competition with plenty to say about what the new Prime Minister needs to do to make Britain a better place.  Whilst primary children may not be able to vote in this election they know a lot about the issues facing the country and as Katie, age 10, explains ‘would like to be heard as well as grown-ups are.’

From personal concerns such as SATs that are ‘torture to the brain’, and living in a damp house that ‘nobody will do anything about’, to global problems like the economic crisis and the destruction of the rainforest, which is ‘a huge mistake because (trees) clean our air’, the children’s letters show a real understanding of the many issues the new Prime Minister will need to address over the next 5 years.

Reading the letters I am impressed by the level of empathy shown for the many groups of people struggling in our society such as the elderly, homeless people and families on low incomes as well as children’s expressions of concern for problems like knife crime, animal testing, vandalism in their local area, nuclear weapons and the safety of troops serving in Afghanistan.

The children’s closing remarks thank the Prime Minister for listening to them; Kyra writes ‘I thank you dearly for reading this letter.  I’m sorry for taking your time away (as Prime Ministers are busy) Thank you again.’ and Thomas writes ‘Thank you for reading my opinion…I hope that you feel as passionate as I do!’

Thankfully for whoever lands the top job tomorrow the children do recognise that the Prime Minister will not be able to do everything asked of them.  As Stevie, age 8, writes ‘Please will you read these carefully and will you do something about it. Thank you if you can do all these things, if you can’t that’s ok!’

To celebrate our twentieth year we invite you to share our reflections and to join our conversations about the future of citizenship education. (more…)

Working on Go-Givers, I’ve seen time and time again, that given the right tools, many children will give up their time or money for a good cause, - and I’m sure that my friends over in G Nation will attest to the same thing. So, I was interested to read research published by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) on the charitable thoughts and habits of children and young people.

This week, Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) published their research in conjunction with FIVE News- in the run up to their ‘Britain’s Kindest Kid’ competition. Some of CAF’s findings reflect the trends highlighted by the Citizenship Foundation’s Giving Nation research - Cancer Research, RSPCA and Children in Need coming out as popular benefactors in both cases, for example. More surprisingly, CAF’s research tells us that 27% of young people had given money to charity in the past 6 months, a low figure when compared with the 55% cited by G Nation’s 2007 research.

After reading the CAF figures, what struck me, is that 75% of the children surveyed would like to give more to charity. Furthermore, 85% believe that charities need to do more to get children interested in their work. So, how to bridge that gap? Well, schools taking part in the Giving Nation Challenge seem to have done a pretty good job of it - in the 08-09 academic year, groups of young people in schools across the UK worked together to raise £295,123.86 for charities of their choosing. On top of that, kids in London primary schools were busy with the Make a Difference Challenge - fundraising was a focus for some, whereas others decided that petitioning or awareness-raising were more appropriate ways to support their chosen cause.

Beyond just fundraising, kids taking part in these programmes feel a real sense of achievement. A 9 year old working on a local regeneration project recently told me “I am proud of what we are doing. I hope there will be change” adding that “Helping society is fun!”.