In my 'Active citizenship' coursework I will be I will be looking at and evaluating the responsible action(s) I undertook in my school, and I will be looking at what I have gained and learnt from these activities.

The video also encouraged us to take part in a campaign, basically about sponsoring a child in Africa. The way we did this was by producing a ‘Buddy’ which represented one African child living in poverty. These ‘Buddies’ were made using templates given our teacher. This was done by years seven, eight, nine and ten. The ‘Buddies’ consisted of different designs which will be sent to Tony Blair and the world leaders at the G8 Summit meeting which will take place in Scotland in June 2005. The reason behind this is to remind them the promises they made at Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. One of these promises was that they would get rid of poverty by 2005 and this huge task could be achieved by each of the eight richest countries, or the G8 donating 0.7% of their gross national income to international aid would assist greatly in this mission being accomplished. The hope was that if enough children sent these ‘Buddies’ in to Tony Blair, then maybe this would have a greater impact on him donating more money to help demolish poverty. I also bought a ‘MakePovertyHistory’ wristband which made me feel that I too was a part of this great and illustrious campaign.

There are many lessons I learnt from this activity. Firstly, it made me realise how lucky we are here, living in Britain, a rich and wealthy society. I also learnt to appreciate thing such as clean water clothes etc, just normal everyday things that people take for granted. Another lesson I learnt was that if we are to get rid of poverty, this will mean the G8 having to cooperate and unite, and everyone will have to be responsible and play their part in this huge task which we face. One person won’t be able to get rid of poverty, we will have to help, each and every one of us as a nation, and hopefully by doing this we will convince Tony Blair and make him realise just how big this issue is.  

Looking back at my experience, I think that there were ways in which I could have done more, for example, I could have raised money by doing charity events and send the money I have raised to Africa to help the poor, but time was a huge problem, as there was only about half a month until school ended. So hopefully, if I have time this year, I plan on raising money by doing charity events and hopefully play my part in making child poverty history.