Suffrage youth project - Session 6
Last week, the young people watched a movie on the suffrage movement. The movie provoked a lot of thought and emotions amongst both the young people and the volunteers. The session inspired a blog post by Humza - a frequent volunteer on the project. I began volunteering in the summer of 2014 with a NGO focused towards child workers and victims of acid attacks. Since, then I have become more socially aware of the issues our society which its members face on a daily basis. After my first volunteering experience, I realised that I enjoyed giving back to society and helping others in any way possible, big or small. Thus, when I joined university and saw that its volunteering team was large, active and strives to help help many different social areas and groups, I knew that I had to participate and join the team. As a Team Member, I am glad to help out in many different student-led projects which spread over multiple areas and focus groups. When I heard of the Suffrage Volunteering Project, I knew that I had to volunteer for that, not only because the history of females in politics is something I study and have an interest in, but also because I saw how it was beneficial to educate our youth and make them more socially and politically aware of this significant movement from 100 years ago. The aims of this project and its leaders are very inspiring and admirable as they affect the youth who will one day grow up and change the world. I have attended a few sessions of this project where the schoolchildren invited were engaged in an interesting and fun manner to learn about the Suffragette Movement. The activities included painting Suffragette sashes, playing games, all while they were being taught who and what the Suffragette Movement was. One session I also particularly enjoyed and was educated by, was when we showed a film regarding the Movement and how these women fought and protested to get the rights that they were unfairly deprived off. The way this project is being lead and the activities it carries out and the rate of involvement with the schoolchildren is very impressive and educational. Humza - Volunteer One of our volunteers reflects on why she chose to volunteer on the suffrage youth project:
I initially heard about the Suffrage Youth Project through my association with the Royal Holloway Volunteering department. I started this academic year with the commitment to get more involved with activities alongside my degree, in order to gain the most from the university experience in my final year. I chose the Suffrage Youth Project because I found the idea of showing our community’s young people the importance of their voice within our community, extremely appealing. However, having never worked with young people in such a direct way I was initially hesitant that I would struggle to engage them in the activities, but I now know I shouldn’t have been. Since joining this project, I have not only learnt a lot about the way in which youth services massively benefit our community, and the way in which the youth workers are able to engage each and every young person, regardless of their diverse and varying needs, but I’ve also had a lot of fun! I’ve loved having the opportunity to engage with not only an extremely diverse group of young people, and watch them become more confident throughout the weeks as they get to know us, but also to engage with my fellow volunteers! Volunteering as part of the Suffrage Youth Project is definitely something I would recommend to anyone looking to getting involved in university life and make a difference. Ella Silvester - Volunteer Suffrage Youth Project - Sessions 4 and 5
''Breaking news, the use of TV for all people under the age of 18 has now been banned! This law is in immediate effect and any unauthorised person caught watching TV will be fined. '' This week at the youth centre the young people faced a dilemma. With TV banned, they would have to fight to regain their right to watch TV. The idea of this activity was to engage the young people in a campaign that they were passionate about. All young people love to watch TV so this was great choice. The campaign also touched upon the theme of inequality, as there was no logical reason why young people in specific were banned; much like women being unable to vote before the Representation of the people act. After describing suffraget and the more peaceful suffragist campaigns to the youth, the young people were ready to get campaigning. To help the young people to 'get their voice heard' we presented them several peaceful methods of campaigning: Poster including slogans, an online petition and letter to the MP. These are all methods which can be used to change policy at the moment. We explained to the young people the impact that they could be making; by sending one letter to the local MP, the issue could be bough up in 'question time' at parliament. Similarly, a petition with over 10,000 signatures is considered by parliament, and 100,000 will be discussed. The young people came up with some really powerful campaigns to regain the right to television. There were colourful posters, attention grabbing online petitions and persuasive letters to the local MP. At the end of the session, it was decided by the 'volunteer and youth worker parliament' that they had regained their right to TV. It was brilliant to see the young people being passionate for a cause, and learning that they have a voice! The session was such a success that we carried out the same activity with another group of young people the following session. Were looking forward to the next session after the holidays where we will be watching a film on the suffrage movement. I hope this will inspire them for future sessions. The young people are learning at such pace and have so many creative ideas for the mosaic which will be created in term two. Erin Trenchard - Team Member Suffrage youth Project - Session 3
In this week’s session the volunteers and the youth group completed a ‘create your own country’ activity led by myself and Emma. The activity involved imagining a country and designing everything from the weather to the town map and the local delicacies. The creation of a country also called for the creation of leadership and governance. When I was in secondary school, I did a very similar activity to this in Citizenship and really enjoyed designing town maps and thinking about what would make a good leader. I decided to share this activity with the youth group as a way to get them thinking more about good leadership qualities both within themselves and in other settings. It was great to see the young people getting creative and engaging with the activity. I was really impressed with the creativity of the youth and array of different countries that they had designed, from ‘’Snowland’’ a country the size of Barbados, to ‘’Pizza Party Island’’ where the currency is pizza. We had countries with weather schedules, Ice cream beaches and so many more creative touches! The youth also created governments and leaders for their countries, and this was a great chance for them think about leadership qualities, to learn about how a government works, and imagine what kind of government they would like. There was loads of different governing styles adopted by the youth, Snowland had laws to ‘have fun’ and to ‘not freeze’, Pearl Paradise country decided that there would be more than one leader for the country as it was so large, the invisible islands had no leader and everybody made laws, and voted equally, and finally ‘The Doctor’ (and the sonic screwdriver!) governed dragon Island. I asked the young people to draw a leader and on the back write down the qualities that made a good leader. The qualities that they listed were really insightful! We had leaders that were brave, intelligent, caring, positive, confident, laid back and fun. I was really impressed with how the youth came up with these fantastic leadership qualities. Overall, we had loads of fun with the young people this week. I hope that the young people will be inspired take on the qualities that they were thinking about in our session, as well as realise the freedom and possibilities that they have. I’m looking forward to next session where the young people will create a campaign for something that they believe in, and learn more about the ways that they can make a difference. Erin Trenchard - Team member Suffrage Youth project - Session 2
I first studied the topic when I was in Year 9 and instantly fell in love with it. I think it was the fact it shocked me that women (and men) hadn’t always had the vote. It was probably my first time I really became aware about the inequality women often face. I wouldn’t at all class myself as a feminist, but I think all women want equality, and a lot of men too. This project means a lot to me as it is important to keep reminding and teaching generations of the struggle for the vote and democracy as a whole. We are lucky to live in a country where we have a democratic Government and a say in what happens. Okay, we’re not perfect, but it needs to be appreciated that the UK has come a long way in the past 100 years and this project is a great way to do this. The ultimate aim is to inspire these young people to get their voice heard and encourage them to engage. They get the opportunity to create a mosaic along the way to commemorate 100 years since the Representation of the People Act gave all men over 21 and women over 30 (who met a property qualification) the vote. My main aim from this whole project is for the young people and the volunteers to have fun. Politics doesn’t have to be boring and it can teach you a lot and give you the confidence to know that you can be heard. We had our first session last week, and although we didn’t have that many young people attend, those that did had a really great time, and we will be seeing more young people in the future. We made Suffragette Sashes, which was messy…but fun! These will be worn on our Suffragette Walk where we will be exploring the history of Founders and showing the movie ‘Suffragette’. A fun fact about the Sashes is the colours actually represent three core ideas of the movement. Purple represents Royalty, which symbolised the royal blood that ran through every suffragette, due to the dignity and reason which they held. White for purity, both inside the house and out. Finally, green for spring and hope, as the vote would mean a new start for women. Emma Ward - Project Leader |
AuthorThe authors of this blog are student Volunteers at Royal Holloway University. Archives
March 2018
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