Future Foundations Awards Day

I have just come back from a long weekend in London feeling uplifted and bursting with optimism for the future. Why the optimism? Hmmm... I think I need to go back a month or two to explain...

I received an email back in early February from Sue Chin, a final year Biology student at Imperial College, London, who was working with a bunch of sixth form students at a London school to promote awareness of the third sector through an organisation called Future Foundations. She had been directed to our website by Future Foundations and wondered how she and the pupils at St Angela's could contribute to The Big Green Idea.

This was an incredibly busy time for me so I explained that although it would be lovely to receive any help, I wouldn't have the time to come up to London to discuss exactly what I'd like the students to help with. I chatted with Sue on the phone and told her that I was finding it extremely difficult to know how to reach young people in their teens with the message of sustainability, so wondered if she could use that as a starting point. Any help we could get from students from St Angela's to identify ways of reaching others in their own age group would be fantastic. However, as I wouldn't be able to get up to London during the period the students were working on the project, they would be completely on their own, with only the BGI website to explain what the charity is all about and to give them ideas for a starting point.

Sue's role was to mentor the students for around three hours each week whilst they planned and executed the project. The students themselves had formed a social enterprise group and their aim was to learn about the third sector at the same time as learning to work together as a team.

Anyway, just over two months elapsed after our telephone conversation and on 3rd April, the last day of the school term, a special ‘Awards Day' was held in London for the five schools, including St Angela's, that had taken part in the scheme since last September. Happily, I was able to attend the awards day with Ginny, who works with me in the office a few days a week as a volunteer.

The event was organised by Nesta and Future Foundations and run in partnership with Students in Free Enterprise and UnLtd and involved the five schools manning stalls to showcase their work with third sector organisations, putting on presentations and being set tasks to demonstrate the skills they had learned whilst being involved in the project. The school teams were all to be judged by a group of highly experienced men and women from the business world and the third sector.

Ginny and I had absolutely no idea what to expect, but were extremely excited at the thought of meeting Sue and the students and finding out what they had done to raise awareness of green issues and to help support the BGI.

When we arrived at lunchtime, the students had already completed a morning of workshops and were ready to be interviewed by the judges about their projects before they made their presentations. There were people everywhere and there was an amazing buzz in the building as Ginny and I set off to find and meet our students who were manning their stall inside the main hall, but we were able to spot our group the moment we went through the door because everything on their stall was so green!

As I said earlier, we had no idea what to expect, but I can honestly say we were absolutely bowled over by the team from St Angela's!! They were full of life, enthusiasm, confidence, energy... and just about every other positive attribute a young person who wants to change the world could be blessed with. Their stall was vibrant and full of ideas and ways that we could reach other young people with the sustainability message, including posters (highlighting issues from growing your own food to saving energy and cutting down on packaging), examples of good and bad lunch boxes, plants and even a competition the students had run in their lower school to increase awareness of green issues. They had quite clearly done their homework on what the BGI is all about, because they knew almost as much about the charity as I do(!). They had also conducted comprehensive surveys within the school to gather information about the issues they needed to target. As well as all this, the students had also put on a school assembly and organised an environmental and ethical awareness day in their school hall... which was so well attended that they ran out of the little green ribbons they were selling to mark the day.

This was all great, but the students' final ‘presentation' really was the cherry-on-the-icing-on-the-cake! Ginny and I sat in the audience feeling every bit as nervous (and as proud) as when we used to watch our own children in school plays - and I have to admit we both had tears in our eyes by the end.

We could take a leaf out of these young people's books. The way they worked together as a team was both seamless and humbling to watch. They demonstrated an energy and commitment that I thought was rare these days, but maybe it's just there, under the surface of every young person, waiting to be harnessed and brought forward. I have no idea if the team from St Angela's realise how powerful a difference they could make if they were to hold on to whatever they achieved with this project and take it out into the big wide world when they leave school next year...

I'd like to say a huge enormous thank you to the students: Natalie Boahene, Ijlal Boubout, Liam McEneaney, Melvin Findlay, Adeola Adelusi, Ciaran James, Rachel Asiedu, Sobia Ahmed and Claire Mac Marquis for all the work they put into the project and for opening my eyes to some interesting new possibilities.

Seriously, these young people give me hope for the future.

Brigit