Team London Young Ambassadors is the Mayor’s school volunteering programme which connects young Londoners with their communities through social action.
Here we learn a little more about their individual projects and the good that these young people do!
Students from Beormund Primary School were determined to take social action on homelessness and mental health. In addition, one student wanted to fundraise for the Motor Neurone Disease Association, a disease which was affecting a family member. All the students got behind this and decided to host a patball tournament to raise funds for all these issues.
They got in touch with local homelessness day centre, The Manna Society, as well as MIND, to tell them about their plan. They sent flyers to local schools to get them involved in the tournament, each school choosing their top patballers. On the day, students sold homemade refreshments, and participants and spectators were asked to donate. It was a fun-packed day where the whole school came together for three fantastic causes!
Students at Marner Primary School want to make their local community a better place. This year they are focussing on the local environment; with high levels of pollution around the school which effect people’s health the motivation to take action was close to home.
They have already taken practical steps, installing a pod which measures pollution levels around the school. They also want to spread the message by creating green walkways, and holding workshops on cycling and pollution. The School Council didn't just stop there, however. They wanted to get the attention of their local MP, and so visited Parliament to hand over a letter which explained their concerns about air pollution near the school, and asked for their support.
Madani Girls School created the WE Society, after hearing about the amazing work of WE and Team London. They aim to tackle a number of campaigns a year. This year they chose 'Heritage in East London', 'Women's Empowerment' and 'Homelessness'.
Their first campaign was to create over 100 care packages for the homeless, donating them to Whitechapel Mission. For the women empowerment campaign, students have written up an action plan where they aim to tackle gender stereotypes and raise awareness of amazing women all over the world. The final campaign will shed light on lives that are often ignored in society - the elderly. They will visit care homes to find out more about the lives of the residents, whose stories will be documented and put into a book created by the WE Society.