What do we want? No more plastic!
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The Arrows took their campaign to Ipswich Waterfront
The ASSET Arrows have been working with Global Action Plan this year to help the organisation create a primary version of their Good Life Schools programme.
Good Life Schools is a programme of environmental and wellbeing education, that helps children overcome messaging targeted at them to consume goods in order to find happiness - focusing on the value of treasuring, reusing and recycling the things we already have.
A year of work culminated in a Day of Action on Tuesday 30th June. The Arrows had already decided that they wanted to target plastic in a move to protect the environment and their future. Having already spoken to teachers in their schools about reducing laminating, they turned their attention to the plastic we bring into school - particularly in our kitchens and lunch boxes.
In the morning children created a very plasticky installation using single use plastic accummulated in our dining rooms over a week, designed campaign banners and recorded podcasts. We then headed to the Waterfront to get our message out!
It was exciting to make a stand for what we believe in, and passers by were incredibly supportive. Our great "ASSET Garbage Patch" was a shocking sight - such a tiny proportion of the single use plastic generated by packed lunches and catering, it helped us to understand the scale of the problem, and the size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. If we can reduce our patch, we can make a difference.
We were very grateful to the Holistic Wellness Centre for helping us work on our voices in the morning. CEO Ellisha Soanes said “We were really excited to be community partners with ASSET on this project and to support the children at the centre. It was a brilliant social action project, and as a social enterprise championing young people’s voices in the local community, we were really proud to be part of it.”
James Crawley from Global Action Plan joined us for the day, and told us "It was an absolute privilege coming together with so many children from across the ASSET Arrows taking social action to clean up our oceans. Observing the children engaging in active citizenship in this way, collaboratively working within teams to building an art installation, campaign materials, and learning how to record a podcast was brilliant! Observing how they protested loudly together, finding creative ways to overcome the fatigue of campaigning and building greater courage and confidence to speak about the issues with members of the public was truly awe-inspiring."
Thanks also to the Port Authority and Dance East, who very kindly agreed to host us on the Waterfront.
Well done ASSET Arrows!
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