Tuesday 26th June saw the first of the summers Go Global Days at Sexey's School in the south west of England. Ellen Hubbard, African Initiatives' volunteer gives her account of the very long, but rewarding day.
The day started bright and
early, I met with Sian and the other
volunteers at the African Initiatives office at 6am - a shock to the system but
I soon saw the necessity of it. We arrived
at Sexeys School in Somerset by 7.30am, meeting two more of the team of 12
volunteers there. Luckily Sian took on a
‘mothering role’, supplying us with breakfast and snacks, and generally making
sure that we (her volunteers) were well looked after.
The hour of unloading,
orientating ourselves in the school and setting up flew by. I had organised the resources into boxes for
each of the workshops the previous week, so found myself on the ball at this
point trying to help to ensure that the right resources went to each volunteer. With 10 workshops in total covering; Malawi – Sustainable Inventions, Ghana – Adinkra Printing,
New Zealand – The Haka, China – Storytelling and Asia
– Playground Games there were a lot of resources!
My main role during the sessions
with the 240 Key Stage 3 students was to support Manuela who was running a workshop
about New Zealand, where students learned the famous Haka. Even though I had
looked through the workshop previously, I felt that I was learning more about
Australasia and in particular New
Zealand in all four of the sessions I helped
run. This pleased me because if I was learning then surely the students were,
right? Manuela and I wanted to try and encourage all the students to get
involved and have a go. It didn’t take them long to get into doing the Haka,
and then creating their own.
In session two I went to
support another volunteer, Immanuel, who was running the Malawi workshop. I was fascinated to learn the story of William
Kamkwamba, a 14 year old boy from Malawi who had built a windmill from a
picture he had seen in a book he borrowed from the library. Using materials he found in a scrap yard he
generated electricity for his family home, and eventually the whole community. It
really is a story that makes one want to shout ‘if there is a problem, don’t sit
back, work on a solution!’ And this is
what the students did in the workshop.
Using junk materials they had previously collected, they built models of
inventions that could encourage sustainable development in just 20 minutes.
After the fifth and final workshop
all the students returned to the main hall for a short assembly and debriefing
of the day. As part of this Sian got every single person on their feet, and
Eleanor and Manuela led all the 240 students plus staff in a huge group
Haka! I performed it at the front with
some student volunteers for everyone else to follow. This truly was amazing and
a lovely end to the day, which was then topped off by the thanks we were given;
the school gave a thank you card, flowers and a box of chocolates to each
volunteer.
I learnt a lot from the day,
and really enjoyed working to increase the awareness of a world that has always
intrigued me, and which I believe everyone should be encouraged to explore and
get to know. Even if the students only enjoyed the day half as much as I did,
and learnt half as much as I did about New Zealand in each of the workshops,
then it was certainly a success.
Since this Go Global day I have
danced the Haka to myself each time I needed to lift my mood, it works so well!
I am already looking forward to any opportunity I get to be involved with future
Go Global days, and I think I would now even have the confidence to run a
workshop myself.
For more information and to
book a Go Global day at your school please visit www.globaleducationinitiatives.org.uk/go-global-days
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