Report on GSF 2006 by students from Stratton Upper School
This is a copy of the report sent to the governors of Stratton Upper School by students who attended the Global Student Forum 2006.
The chance to go to the ‘Stop Aids’ conference in London and become a member of the Global Students Forum was a unique opportunity. Ten Year 12 students were selected after writing a formal letter of application explaining why we felt we would be the best people for the roles and we attended the national conference on 3rd July. The conference was eye-opening and extremely educational, filling us with the motivation to help us make a difference to the global problem of HIV and AIDS. We were trained as peer educators and equipped with the information to go away and help heighten the awareness and knowledge of our peers in our community. After the conference we had the privilege of meeting our local MP Alistair Burt at the House of Commons to express our concerns about this issue and question him on the government’s plan of action to combat this problem.
Through the GSF we have undertaken a number of activities to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS for peer groups and younger years at Stratton. This has involved delivering a session to Year 12’s on their induction day into sixth form. The session incorporated interactive material to cover issues regarding HIV and AIDS and passing on information we learnt from the conference. Our aim was to draw attention to the realisation that this is a global issue and it can also affect students in Stratton School which hopefully made students question the generalisation that this was only an issue for underdeveloped countries. Our education programme also spanned to our own year group when we delivered a workshop to Year 13’s on the afternoon of our Citizenship Day. This was challenging as it involved educating our fellow class mates but we rose to the challenge. We aimed to educate all years and not just the 6th form therefore the most appropriate way we decided to address Year 9, 10 and 11 students was through assemblies. This allowed us to use resources provided by the GSF and use mind provoking video footage to show the sheer vastness of this growing problem.
One of our main aims as a group was not just to educate and raise awareness of this issue but also raise funds to aid in the combat of HIV. Therefore we set about to organise a ‘red day’ for the school as red is associated with the issue of HIV and AIDS - we thought this was a novel way to attract attention rather than just having a standard non-uniform day. ‘Red Day’ was planned to coincide around the time of World AIDS day and allowed us to promote the issue and sell red ribbons to all year groups to raise funds for charity. The red day was a great success with all year groups joining in the spirit wearing items of red clothing. Our fundraising events led to raising nearly £1,000 when combined with the funds from the Dance for Life lunchtime event.
The Dance for Life event left the year 10 students buzzing for days afterwards. This began at the conference with a workshop focusing on dance as a universal language to promote awareness in all countries. We were privileged to be one of a very small number of schools to have the Dance for Life team come into school and run a mornings’ workshop for Year 10 students. After gentle persuasion all students became involved along with supervising teachers! After the success of this event it promoted us to act on the interest and form a group of Year 10 students who would work with us specifically working on the Dance for Life side of our fundraising. Later that term the GSF team organised for students to pay to come into the Dance Studio and “dance for life”. This effectively repeated the previous dance workshop but this time led by the Year 13 GSF students. This raised further funds which went towards our fundraising total.
As a group we gained a great deal from this experience and being members of the GSF. The opportunity to get involved in such an informative project was a great privilege and one which we worked on to get as much out of as possible. The knowledge we gained personally from the conference really was eye-opening and the chance to educate others allowed the issue to be recognised by a wider audience. The team work and leadership skills we gained from our work will stay with us into the future and those wanting to enter a teaching profession have had their skills enhanced with the requirement to teach others. We hope as a team we have made an impact on the students we have taught and they will now act on the information we have given them and become more aware of this issue on a global scale. We hope our insights that we have passed on will allow others to make an impact and together we can help to tackle such important global issues.
GSF members:
Naomi Swales, Holly Yates, Hannah Payne, Sarah Church, Matthew Payne, Naomi Welch, Natasha Welch, Ashleigh Canfield, Emma Hawkins, Charlotte Dunster