Past Social Action Projects

Check out this video of this summer team who created an amazing sensory garden in a local primary school. The team have now won an additional £2000 of funding and are now building another garden in the October half term in Earley

Our Ideas about our social action: Our project aim was, ‘to take the children that were left alone, and make it right.’ The reason for this was the fact that we felt too many children had been neglected, mainly emotionally, by their parents, and change was strongly needed.

THE CHANGE WE MADE: This action started immediately with t-shirts being produced, which were donated by Tesco’s, and printed on by Cavaliers. These T-shirts were to be worn to events and to outline clearly what we involved. Following the production of these, we created our petition sheets. These sheets clearly state the aim in which we are trying to achieve and, while getting signatures, we happily answered any questions the person signing had. This process allowed the person signing to understand and back our campaign, truly understanding the problem with the law.

The sustainable focus point of our campaign, the change towards the law, began immediately. This happened with us approaching members of the public on the streets of Reading, while explaining to them what emotional child neglect actually is and the severe impact it can have on the child. Following this, throughout the weeks the petition papers were distributed across businesses, along the Reading high street. They also made their way around many schools and colleges in the Reading area. This petition was to take off over the internet after much time waiting. The campaign was now full steam ahead, with not only people from the Reading area being able to sign our petition. With just over 2,500 signatures so far attained, we understand that we are not near our target at the deadline. However, the whole team equally understands that we will not give up on this, until our goal is achieved, and that action needs to be taken!

Our passion and attitude was recognised by the Executive director of Action for Children and Members from the NSPCC when we got in contact with them, explaining to them the action that we were intending to take, along with how we intended to make the change. They saw our understanding of the law they had long been attempting to change, and recognised how dearly we felt about this cause. This recognition encouraged the team to work even harder, forming further aspects to our campaign.

On the more virtual aspect of our campaign, a successful website was set up, as well as a presentation created, alongside tumblr, Facebook and twitter pages. These pages, greatly affected how we accessed the public, and how we got our point across to the public.

Launchpad:
As a team we elected to work with the charity Launchpad, who are based in Reading. They not only provide immediate aid to the homeless but also seek to build stable futures for those in need.

Our total efforts over the month managed to raise a tremendous £525 to donate to Launchpad, which will go a long way to fund their ‘Below Zero’ breakfast scheme. This runs during the winter when temperatures are below 0’C, and so a warm breakfast is provided for those on the streets. This was achievable due to the great commitment from the team.

‘I have been genuinely very impressed with how the group’s co-ordinators have kept their project on track with such a short time frame. They have put a tremendous amount of energy into devising the activities and ensuring they have the resources they needed from Launchpad to ensure their awareness raising has been linked to our current campaign.