Background

Background to Save the Children Fund ~ Kroo Bay topic Our school-wide theme for 2009 is “Citizenship is everyone’s business”.
 * __Human Rights in Education__**

In Term 3 the in Kahikatea Syndicate chose to study Children’s Rights. The ideas behind it were: 1. To compare how children’s rights are observed at Nelson Central School with those of other children in a different place in the world. 2. To show how we can build on the current situation.

We discovered the Save the Children Fund Kroo Bay website which provided us with a perfect contrast to our lives at Nelson Central School. We made contact with Save the Children Fund through the website and were given permission to use some of their photos.

We researched how basic children’s rights were met (or not) in Kroo Bay and ultimately made movies to highlight the differences. These movies can be seen on this wiki. We were so affected by what they had learned we decided to take things a little further. Our next topic was about ways we express ourselves and our final task was to perform or present an item which expresses an idea or opinion. We saw the opportunity in this inquiry to add to our learning in this area.

We used our knowledge in speeches which we presented to members of the congregation from the church next door in an effort to persuade them to support Save the Children Fund. As a result the congregation were enthusiastic about doing this. Some children also addressed our student council who agreed to get behind any fundraising efforts for Save the Children fund on the basis of what was presented to them. Later in Term 4 two children in Room 3 arranged a school-wide colouring competition with a gold coin entry an raised $43 for Save the children fund, and Room 5 donated their $50 prize money from the Science fair to Save the Children Fund.

This was a hugely successful topic in terms of the effect it had on the children involved and the increased awareness it developed of human rights issues.

Sue McLean, Kahikatea Team Leader