World To Rights

Burton-on-Trent, Holy Trinity Primary School

This week, we returned to a school we visited back in 2007 with our Free For All project to work again with the 50 or so children on our new project, World To Rights.

The children had recently studied Victorian life and were able to give examples of chimney sweeps and children working in factories.  A great place to start exploring the horrors of the mill houses, life on the streets of London and of course the Victorian circus.

We also gained the expertise of Nick, a school Governor who was visiting the school for a day who enthusiastically took on the role of the mill foreman.  He admitted that he had been involved in a number of church performances, and brought this experience to the role with gusto!

A good sized audience came to watch the final performance which both entertained and challenged them to engage with the whole issue of child rights both in our history, but also around the world today, and even in the UK where children are still put at risk and face dangerous situations daily.

For more pictures of our day in Burton, click here.

All Nations, Ware

By a kind invitation from Jill Ford, the three of us went to All Nations this week to showcase the World To Rights project to a group of students training there.  Very quickly, we had them in the shoes of hundreds of young people who this year have explored the issues behind children's rights around the world.

We made some good links with the students and hope to continue our relationship with All Nations in the future.

More pictures here.

Manchester Cathedral

After a long break over Easter, the World To Rights team hit the road again in Manchester!  Two schools took part in the workshops, one Primary, one Secondary - to learn about Child Rights, and explore what our responsibilities are today for children around the world.

Despite the large age range, the young people and children worked well together, and were able to learn from each other throughout the day.

Pupils from Chorlton High Secondary School worked on the mill scene - bringing to life the poor working conditions and long hours experienced by many children in the Victorian era.  They also worked on the modern day classroom scene and came together with St Thomas' Primary School, Rochdale for the circus scene, where the young girl playing the part of the Mighty Wonder showed an horrific end to her story by falling from the high wire.  St Thomas' also worked on the streets of London scene which shows the dangers children faced in our past.

A good number of parents and tourists made up our day-time audience, who were also shown the DVD made from the Philippines showing life for some of the many street children there.

Thanks to Pam for all her help from the Cathedral in organising this day, and thank you to the teachers and staff who really got stuck in to the activities.

If you want to follow up any of the material from the day - check out our resources page and also point pupils towards our activist page.

Pictures of the day here.

Gloucester Cathedral - the return

So, we're back to Gloucester to run a day that got canceled a while back, and we had another BIG day!  180 children from local Primary schools gathered for 10am to start a journey with the World To Rights team.

All the children were incredibly good at connecting with the content of the day, and really threw themselves into the action.  At the end of the day, Dave presented them with some challenges.  First - wear their World To Rights wristband with pride to remind themselves of the day, and also to see the WTR website (www.worldtorights.info)  If you would like a wristband - please check out this page to see how to get yours.

The second challenge was to take a trax16 card so they could listen to the latest podcast looking at TAKING ACTION.  The last challenge was to download the free Activist's Handbook from our website.  This will lead them through a week of action in standing up for children's rights around the world.

We've had some really nice comments from teachers today, and even the offer of a job with one of the schools!  More pictures here.

Liverpool Cathedral

Liverpool Cathedral is such a huge building, and we had big numbers for our World To Rights workshops to match!  Two full days of creative energy washed through the ancient building with shouts of, "We are working in the mill!" and "We're putting the World To Rights!"

Day one, we had over 160 pupils from St Luke's Primary School, St Cleopas Primary School, St Michaels CE High School, St Johns Waterloo and Parklands School who put on a stunning performance after quite a manic day of workshops.

Day two, we saw pupils from St Philips Primary, St Andrews Primary, Lawrence Primary and St Thomas Boteler who again had the chance to go back in time and visit the Victorian era to witness life without rights.

One of my memories of the first day was watching some of the pupils from St Thomas Boteler School breakdancing at lunch time - very impressive!

So a big thank you to Sarah and Caroline from the Cathedral for looking after us so well.  More pictures here.

St Joseph and St Teresa's Catholic Primary School, Doncaster

What a treat is was to go into my little boys school with the World To Rights programme!  Previously, I had taken some assemblies focusing on children around the world, and our responsibilities to stand up for their rights, and now it was time to bring in Dave and Anita too for a full day's workshops for all the year 5 and 6s across two schools.

Numbering almost 90 pupils, we spread across two halls during the workshop part of the day, exploring Victorian England in various settings, showing how tough life for children living then actually was.

When it came to working on the Victorian Circus, we brought them all together for a spectacular show of jugglers, acrobats, clowns and horses as Dave, the Ringmaster, captured our imagination in a magical way.

The boys were particularly interested when Dave turned the focus to football teams who have bucked the trend of sponsorship on their team shirts, to advertising charities - doing their bit to making a difference in the world and standing up for those who can't stand up for themselves.  The challenge, of course, is to do the same by using our voices, our money, our skills and our choices.

More pictures here.

High Leigh, Hoddesdon - CMS Members act out Child Rights.

Cheeky, playful, graceful and focused are four words that well described the work of 80 or so senior members of the Church Mission Society as they took part in our World to Rights drama project the High Leigh CMS conference over the weekend.

The aim of our session was to give the conference delegates a flavour of what children are getting up to up and down the country engaging themselves in drama about child rights both in history and today. The best way to do this was to let them have a go. As always it was a pleasure to work with this special generation and see how they transformed themselves from passively sitting on seats to become an energised group enacting scenes from a Manchester Cotton Mill, The Streets of London and a Victorian Circus.

As one Member exclaimed:  

"I am 7 years short of a century and can remember a time when life for many children was actually like this".

More pictures here

World to Rights continues this week in Doncaster and then we're off to Liverpool next week.

Chichester Cathedral

A stunning setting for our next stop on the tour - Chichester Cathedral.  Over 2 days, we worked with more than 250 children from nearby schools, and had a great audience on both days.

Space was tighter than usual on the second day, and the team had their work cut out to ensure everyone got stuck in and pulled together for the big performance at the end of the day.

Scott, a pupil from day one, showed a great attitude during the workshops, and was rewarded by taking the role of the young child who gets caught up in the mill machinery.  (Some reward you might say!)

The scene shows how little care and protection children were given 150 years ago.  Children from the age of seven worked long hours in the mills under dangerous and unhealthy conditions, often getting hurt in the machinery or ill from the cotton fibers in the air.

Many thanks to teachers and Cathedral staff for supporting us this week.  Pictures here.

Coworth-Flexlands School

On Monday, Anita and myself traveled through some lovely English countryside to take World to Rights to this all girls independent school in very picturesque surroundings.  Beforehand, we were informed about the school's pedigree in creative and performing arts and I have to say we were not let down.

We started the session with a quick warm up focusing on both their performance technique and introducing the theme of children's rights.  We suddenly realised that we actually would have to get the show on the road quicker than we ever have before and pulling this all together in time for 3.30pm would not have been possible without the focus and determination of our all girl cast.

Today's finale song was, I think, the best it has been performed yet and the whole hall seemed to be singing and dancing.  Credit here goes to Anita and her choreography skills and quick dancing feet.  More pictures here.

Dave

Gloucester Cathedral

Well, the snow came down again, and we had to postpone our first day in the Cathedral due to school closures.  However, it didn't slow us down too much starting on Wednesday with a Chapter House full of Primary school children from 2 different schools, and then again on Thursday.

With one of our team down with the flu, Anita, Mike and last minute stand-in Chrissie had a great day on Wednesday.  Dave, Anita and the recovered Jodie took on Thursday.

Being in the Chapter House gave us a very different space to work in, and it made for a change in the performance.  Instead of having groups sat at the sides, it was more like having everyone sat around in a circle - with the stage in the middle.  Children became workers in the cotton mill, pickpockets on the streets of London, and circus entertainers to show the audiences some of the perils of being a child in the Victorian era.

As a team, we get a break after this week - it's half term!  We hope to be reviewing the first month and a half of workshops, and build in more aspects of modern day child rights issues to help the pupils bring their experiences into today.

Pictures here.