Children for Children: Making A Difference in Nepal
Dear Schools,
T
hank you so much for getting involved with this event.
We wanted to think of something that was achievable and easy to manage, but that also ensured children could feel actively involved.
We were delighted that Brian Moses agreed to adapt his poem The Friendship Bench especially for the event and that Jacqueline Bissett created the logo for us. Both achieving their tasks with a deadline of one night!
Everyone will know the disaster that has hit Nepal. It is believed that in excess of 10,000 people will have lost their lives. Some of you will know that the University of Sussex was already trying to help children in Nepal by creating recordings of stories written in English and then sending the recordings and the books directly to schools. State education in Nepal was already in a dire state and one of the best hopes for a job for Nepalese people is to be able to speak English. Since the disaster, many children’s lives will be in an even more critical state, so we need to help and make a difference.
What we'd like you to do
Our event is simple:
We have provided a poem (see below) and what we want is for as many people as possible to sponsor their learning of a verse or the whole poem.
We think the best way to mark this as an event is for everyone involved to recite the poem together on the 22nd May, the last day of half term. If you have an INSET on that day, then the 21st would be great too!
If you are able to stage a mass poetry reading at your school, it would be really fantastic if you could record it and send it to j.tregenza@sussex.ac.uk.. We hope to make a short film of all the recordings to send to Nepal to show the children there what we are doing for them.
Donations
We have set up a Just Giving account to make donations as simple as possible.
When you submit a donations, please identify which school it has come from. We want to map all the schools who are helping to share this information with schools in Nepal.
Thank you all for your time and support.
The Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Team, Department of Education,
University of Sussex
The Friendship Bench
Every colour
and every creed,
People with money
and people in need.
We want
everyone sitting on the friendship bench.
No need to argue,
no need to fight,
nobody thinking that
might is right,
just
everyone sitting on the friendship bench.
We want positive, negative,
black and white,
darkness giving way
to the light.
We want hope for the future,
lessons from the past,
the sort of friendship
that lasts and lasts,
we want
everyone sitting on the friendship bench.
And we need it more
in times like these,
so we can all join hands
with the Nepalese
All of us, sitting on the friendship bench,
All of us sitting on the friendship bench.
Brian Moses
Other ideas for the Friendship Bench poem
- Write your own verse
- Set the poem to music
- Translate it into a different language
- Illustrate it
- Use it as a focus for a PSHCE lesson: what do the children in the class want?
- Use it as a start point for a focus on Nepal
See also:
Making A Difference: INFO FOR PARENTS & GUARDIANS [PDF 375.60KB]