We have developed an educational social activist leadership program for your high school students which is designed to drive positive change and help end extreme poverty. It also helps students develop their personal and professional skills while showing them how they can empower themselves and their peers to create real change in our world.
By getting involved with the program, students will gain:
Personal development |
|
|
|
Professional development |
|
|
|
We ask students to learn about the issue of extreme water poverty and give a presentation to their peers. The presentation covers five key themes:
1) The problems caused by extreme water poverty
2) The problems caused by overpopulation
3) How extreme water poverty is linked to overpopulation
4) A shared solution: Clean water for every child, everywhere
5) The role each student can play and how we can work together to solve this issue
The goal for the student is to drive attendees of the presentation to ‘add their voice’ to the cause via their personal Care Profile (click to see an example), or via EssentialNeed.org, to help us reach our goal of 1 million voices. These voices help empower change through our correspondence with government officials to encourage them to fund the solution to end extreme water poverty and provide access to clean water to every child by the year 2030.
As a teacher, we would like you to:
1. Discuss the program with students and help identify those that would be interested in or would benefit from the skills gained in this program.
2. Encourage your students to participate and present to a peer group of their choosing. This could be their class, sports group, worship group or others. If you have a number of students in one class interested, they might like to present together. If they enjoy the presentation, you might like to encourage them to present to a larger group.
3. Provide/direct students to this presentation
4. Support students to prepare for the presentation and help them with any challenges they encounter organizing the event
5. Encourage the students that did present to:
i. write an article for EssentialNeed to publish on its blog, and or
ii. speak to their local newspaper, and or
iii. publish a post on any of their social media networks and link it to EssentialNeed Facebook page or website
Once any student has completed any of the steps listed under point 5 above, he/she becomes a level one Ambassador and will be listed on our Ambassadors page recognizing his/her achievement. Then the student has the option to work towards the level two Ambassador program. You can find out more about the Ambassador program here.
We would love to hear any feedback or improvement ideas you might have for our program. Please email us at school@essentialneed.org.
“Ambition drove me to publicly speak and present information to students, teachers and the Principal. Everyone was moved about the facts of extreme water poverty and its global side-effects.
After presenting I gathered I want to do more. My friends and I became a team to acquire donations. We decided to ask students in my year (year 12) for a "gold coin" donation. Although the donations attained from my year group were great, I felt that as a cohort we had the ability to make a greater contribution. I discussed several options with teachers and my team and initiated the idea to have a cake sale. The cake stall was held during a school performance night where parents and students gathered together. 100% of the donations from the cake stall went to EssentialNeed.org, providing 15,032 days of clean water to disadvantaged people. This empowering event not only saved the lives of children in developing countries but, enabled me to appreciate life and the power of unity. I gained a deeper understanding of the importance of helping disadvantaged individuals and the significance of being a good leader. This was my most fulfilling experience through my year 12.
I encourage every student to join the Ambassador Program.” - Matin Elyassi
Matin Elyassi – Activist and Recipient of the Early Achievers Program Scholarship, Cecil Hills High School, Sydney, Australia
