School pupils from three Church of England schools in the New Forest have played a key role in raising awareness of climate justice at Parliament.
Young people from William Gilpin, Brockenhurst Primary and South Baddesley Church of England schools took part in Christian Aid’s ‘Get Creative For Climate Justice’ project which encouraged young people to use their creativity to raise awareness of the issue. It provided resources to support pupils to explore climate change as a social justice crisis and then make artworks to showcase their thoughts.
Schools were then encouraged to submit their creations to be exhibited at the Houses of Parliament. Artwork was selected from two pupils from Brockenhurst and South Baddesley and 11 year old Sophie Strehlau from William Gilpin was chosen to be an exhibition guide at Parliament and talk to MPs who came to view the displays.
Sophie said, “I’ve never been to the Houses of Parliament before so it was amazing to be able to experience going there. We went to talk about climate change and climate justice and how it’s affecting our world, and to see if MPs can do something about it.
“The picture I created shows the world. Half the world is a smiley one with the blue ocean and green land, plants and trees. That’s how earth originally was. The other half is a dark world and that is how our future could be, if we don’t stop climate change now. We don’t want our future to be like that. You can also see there’s a bit of grey on the side which is all the smoke and the oil we’re burning. I want our world to be as best as it can. We need to act now, and stop thinking we’ll do it later. We should stop climate change before it gets any worse.”
The trip to Parliament is part of work within the schools by Brockenhurst parishes, led by Children and Families worker Mel Osborne. She has been working across the three primaries for the past 2 years.
At William Gilpin Schools she runs a Church School Vision Group, which comprises of 8 children of all ages. They have to apply to become members and meet fortnightly. They have times of worship and lead assemblies, which this year have focused on climate justice, the environment and poverty.
Mel also works with 6 Worship Ambassadors at South Baddesley School and 10 at Brockenhurst.
In September they decided to apply to take part in the ‘Get Creative For Climate Justice’ project.
Mel said, “When we looked at the project, we talked about the fact that the people who are most affected by climate change are actually the ones that have done the least damage. That we, through industrialisation and colonialisation, have impacted the countries that we call the global south the most. It’s raising that awareness in younger people because they see what’s going on. We’re not frightening them because that wouldn’t be helpful but we’re saying, we have a solution. The idea is that we’re putting pressure on MPs to ask them to find innovative financial ways to help these countries so that’s why Christian Aid feel that we need to bring young people and the MPs together.”
The pupils visited the offices of Christian Aid and mixed with other pupils from schools across the country. 22 MPs visited the exhibition including their local MP Sir Julian Lewis.
Teacher Holly Hoogenboom said, “It’s been an absolute pleasure to take part in this. It’s amazing to watch these children, who have all got very strong opinions, being able to articulate them so beautifully to people, who some would consider potentially intimidating. These children tell them they need to do more and all of the adults, who went along, stood back and allowed it to happen. It was wonderful.”
Mel added, “You can explain and give information, but what’s been amazing is how it’s been interpreted. Sophie’s passionate words come from the heart and that makes me feel proud. They are the ones with fire in their bellies to go off and do something about it”.
She continued, “I hope the pupils realise they are not alone. That when they use their voices, we listen and we allow them to speak by themselves. We don’t speak on their behalf, they are empowered to talk about these things and we will support them and come alongside them to do that. As a church we can do that”.
The Church School Vision group are now inspiring their peers and there are plans to have a school-wide climate justice art exhibition in the summer. Members of the community, church and local MP will be invited along to see and listen.
The school is also planning to join Christian Aid’s Global Neighbours accreditation scheme where schools are awarded bronze, silver and gold to recognise their work in global education such as poverty and injustice, and being advocates for change.
Sophie is planning to take her climate justice awareness into secondary school when she moves on later this year.
She said, “We only have one world and we need to fix it before it’s too late and before the problem becomes bigger. It will be my generation who will live in this world, so I think we need to speak now. I hope the MPs took in what I said and will talk to others, so that we can change our world to make it a better place.”
