As today is international women's day, it seemed fitting to leave a quick post onto our blog. This day celebrates the rights of women, one of these being women's right to the vote.
It is important to remember the progress that has been made by women but also acknowledge the progress that is yet to be made. Although women in the UK gained their right to vote in 1918, there are still countries where this isn't yet the case. A great web post details women's right to vote across the world. Check it out for more info. Whatever you are doing, have a great day! Suffrage youth session week 11 Yesterday was the last ever project session at the youth centre. In this session we were delighted to have finished the mosaic with the young people! During the session we put the finishing touches to the smaller sections, filled in the gaps in the tiles and started to fit everything together. A new tile with the royal Holloway logo was placed at the top, and we began the task of arranging all the panels that the young people had been working on - this was a fun yet tough job because we had to balance out all the different colours and designs to make the mosaic look coordinated. And finally, we got to see the special background tiles which were printed with the black and white designs that the young people picked out in session 7. Now, all that's left to do is for our mosaic artist, Kim, to add the background tiles, put the panels together, and mount the mosaic. It was a really fun evening as usual but i was also aware that this was the last time that i'd be working with our bright and lovely youth groups. Everyone took the time to reflect on the project at the end of the session. It was clear that the young people that we worked with had really enjoyed and profited from the project. I hope that we have inspired the young people to be more confident and stand up for themselves and others, as well as sparked an interest for the movement. Our young people, volunteers and youth leaders have learned some great mosaic making skills too! For me and the volunteers it has been a pleasure working with the two youth groups, their leaders and Kim! A massive thanks to everyone for making this project possible! And congratulations to all who participated! 🎉 Erin Trenchard - Team member Suffrage Youth Project Session 9&10
The past few weeks we have been incredibly busy with the mosaic and a special visitor... 🐻 The Mosaic is really starting to look polished as the middle section of suffragettes and the borders are almost complete. Our young people are now finishing off their designs for the outer section of the mosaic. Both young people and youth leaders have learnt to select, cut and glue tiles down correctly and the mosaic is now really growing with pace! It's great to see everyone getting stuck in to finish the project, including our visitor for #iwillweek. The goal of #iwillweek is to encourage young people to participate in some volunteering within the community. Both the young people and the volunteers enjoyed having our visitor for the week. Our bear was decked out with some glasses and got stuck into the mosaic creating too 😉. Suffrage Youth Project Session 8
This week Members of the History Society joined us to lead the session with the young people continue with the mosaic. Emily from the History Society has written this week's update. In preparation for this week’s session, I read around the topic to understand the history of the suffrage movement better. Though I have studied it before, it was quite a while ago and so I wanted to be able to help the youth group come up with ideas for what they wanted to see on their mosaic. In doing this, I learnt significantly more about prominent suffrage movements, not just here but across the world. I also learnt the extent to which people were willing to go to win their right to vote. Both of these highlight the significance of the opportunity we now have to have our say (a point that the Suffrage Centenary Project really tries to get across). Throughout the session, the young people continued to build the central piece of the mosaic and come up with further ideas to include around the main piece. The mosaic artist was always on hand to help and showed both the volunteers and the young people how to create a perfect mosaic. I was even taught how to break the glass tiles to fit into smaller spaces, something I had never done before! Although we did also have a game prepared for the group, they were so focused on adding tiles to their section and expanding upon what had been achieved last week that we ran out of time! By the end of the session, the mosaic was looking significantly more complete thanks to all of the youth group’s hard work, so I cannot wait to see what it looks like when it is finished! Overall, it was a relaxed and sociable evening, allowing us volunteers to get to know the young people better! They were very talkative and we spent the evening chatting and laughing at all of their jokes. I would certainly recommend taking part in the project as it is the perfect opportunity to get involved with the young people of the community and to engage with such an important historical topic which still holds great significance today, all in a really fun way! Emily Briffett - History Society Suffrage youth project session 7
"I always feel the movement is a sort of mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end." - Alice Paul. Over the previous sessions, the young people have been learning about the Suffrage movement, politics and leadership to inspire their design, along with some input from our artist, to create a mosaic to celebrate a hundred years since the movement. Every young person that has participated on the project will help design and create the mosaic based on what they have learned. Just like the quote from Alice Paul, each session and each young person's perspective is another stone which adds to the mosaic. Last Tuesday, our mosaic artist brought along an outline ready to fill based on her previous discussions with the youth group. The mosaic features a suffragette march in the centre, surrounded by smaller panels for the young people to add their own designs. During the session, the young people searched for images of the movement to include in the mosaic. Their designs included iconic pieces of the suffrage story, such burning politicians houses, exploding post boxes, the 'Cat and Mouse', violet flowers and a suffragette badge - These were all thought up and drawn by the young people! Our volunteers and young people were all given instructions on how to put together the mosaic and started to fill in the intricate central piece and began on the outline. There was loads left to do after the session ended but it's great to see the mosaic taking form! Erin Trenchard - Team member |
AuthorThe authors of this blog are student Volunteers at Royal Holloway University. Archives
March 2018
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