Young leaders hold assembly on international efforts to tackle poverty

Assembly at Salesian College Farnborough

A group of inspirational young people from Farnborough have been raising awareness about poverty and the work international development charity CAFOD is doing to tackle it.

'Young leaders' from Salesian College Farnborough, recently held an event for the whole school - teaching them what they had learned on their recent training with CAFOD on how countries around the world are working to tackle poverty.

They used games and activities to illustrate inequality around the world. One activity included placing seven comfy chairs around the audience. Pupils were then told that the seven people sat in those chairs - out of the 700 people in the audience - would receive a special lunch for them and a friend, and a packet of skittles "for no other reason than the place they sat."

One of the young leaders who helped organise the event said: "Poverty affects three billion people in the world. This is 39% of the population. So, if our school was a representation of the global population, one of those years would be living in poverty."

"After the activities, we discussed the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, and the optimism and realities concerned with them."

CAFOD's young leadership programme is offered to those in their first year of sixth form and has been running for over half a decade. It has inspired a generation to raise awareness and fundraise for communities around the world.

Sinead Callaghan, Young Leadership Coordinator at CAFOD, said: "I would like to say a huge thanks to these Young Leaders for raising awareness. It is inspiring to see young people speaking out for the issues they care about and sharing this with their peers."

Find out more at: https://cafod.org.uk/Education/Young-Leaders