CAFOD Young Leaders Reflect on Their Journey

On Wednesday 17 May, the CAFOD Young Leaders travelled to Our Lady’s Help of Christian’s Catholic Church to attend day three and the final training in their roles.

The students started the day by getting to know and reconnecting with fellow Young Leaders from other schools.  They organised themselves into various orders, such as birthday and alphabetical before being placed into groups.  They got to know each other with various questions before representing Farnborough Hill in their presentation, talking about the various events they had organised throughout the year, their successes and their reflections.  The girls listened to the other schools with great interest and picked up many tips they can bring back to Farnborough Hill. 

Soon after, they were asked questions in their groups that particularly affected their generation.  One example was ‘How do you want to leave the world for the younger generation?’.  The students all came up with many answers, such as world peace and no fossil fuel use, as well as many personal ones and listened to other groups.  It made them all think of how much we all are responsible for the world around us.

Following a much needed lunch break, the students were given an activity to match various issues, pictures, events and outcomes of different awareness campaigns that have occurred in the past.  Many were related to issues that we experience today, but some form of action has been taken to help solve these issues, such as the free food campaign by famous footballer Marcus Rashford and the ‘Bury the Debt’ campaign where $110 billion worth of debt was cancelled and money was directed towards hospitals and schools.  The group all admired the determination of people involved in these campaigns and were inspired to make such a positive change as well. 

Towards the end of the day, they were asked about anything that takes place in their schools which bother them about environmental awareness.  The girls were told of a story where pupils took great effort to organise rubbish but realised how it all ended up in the same bag at the end of the day.  The sixth formers all related somehow to this incident, mentioning their own dilemmas such as lights being left on (which we encourage our pupils to turn off) and the availability of more recycling bins, which we are pleased is being addressed by the facilities team.  This further ignited their determination to make a change and finished the day feeling empowered.  On the way back, they all discussed their new ideas and concerns and are excited to one day see their thoughts come to life.