CAFOD Young Leaders use their voices to support the global community

For those who may not know, CAFOD is the ‘Catholic Agency For Overseas Development’, an international development charity that is the primary aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. As a school, we have worked with CAFOD for many years, supporting them with various pursuits. However, the Young Leaders Programme, which always attracts many of our girls, has a new campaign which has caught the attention of some of our Sixth Form students.

The campaign is called ‘Power To Be’ and hopes to bring electricity to the one in six people who live without it in the world. CAFOD exclaims that “every child has the power in them to achieve great things”, which is at the heart of our school ethos, reflected in our journey with High Performance Learning and one of the reasons we are so proud that our CAFOD Young Leaders are supporting this campaign.

In last Friday’s whole school assembly, the group of four Lower Sixth Young Leaders, Gigi D., Miriam E-N., Kelly S. and Celia W. presented their ideas in support of the campaign which will see them raise awareness to the wider school community, and hopefully further afield, that children are being held back on reaching their full potential through the lack of a basic right: electricity. The girls explained in their presentation that providing renewable energy sources to those who live without electricity is the safest and most reliable way we can help the global community. This led them on to inform their peers that although the UK already spends money on energy access for the poorest through the World Bank, only 3% of the money supports the kind of energy proven to tackle poverty.

To encourage the World Bank to increase its spending on renewable energy for those who need it, the girls asked the students to sign the petition that is calling on Melanie Robinson, the UK’s representative at the World Bank, to shift the balance to support renewable energy. On top of doing this, the girls have taken the initiative to write to local MP, Mr Daniel Zeichner, in the hope that he will, as our representative in parliament, write to the Secretary of State for International Development to ask her how the UK will use its voice at the World Bank to ensure that support for renewable energy in the world’s poorest communities is at the forefront of our views as a country. Watch this space!