Action on Poverty Week

Next week the Island School Social Justice Group (ISSJG) will be holding their first Action on Poverty Week for this academic year. The main focus of the week is awareness raising and a poverty simulation.

On Thursday 29 November, in assembly Houses were selected to be the “privileged and underprivileged” Houses. As a result on Wednesday 5 Dec 2018 the privileged Houses – Rutherford, Da Vinci and Wilberforce will be allowed to wear casual clothes to school, cut in lunch queues, have opportunity to use all facilities on all floors in the school whilst the underprivileged group will have to queue for lunch and tolerate the privileged cutting in line, will have restricted use of certain facilities and wear school uniform.

There will be reflection opportunities through the day on boards at the entrance to document their feelings through the day. The aim is for students to understand how limitations can impact people’s lives and relate this to the limitations of poverty. The day will be supervised by senior students and teachers.

In addition to the simulation we will be asking Year 7 students to prepare a ‘Box of Hope’ to be distributed in our local Sha Tin community in the lead up to Lunar New Year. Information about this will be sent next week and in January.

Next term the second action on poverty week will take place with a sleeping rough simulation, community volunteering and soap recycling activities. If you have any suggestions or connections to Hong Kong poverty relief charities who would welcome our volunteers and support please do not hesitate to contact us at kate.sommerville@online.island.edu.hk and maryanne.mcphee@online.island.edu.hk

Teachers supporting the Island School Social Justice Group, Maryanne McPhee and Kate Sommerville.