Eton boys Zain, Sandy and John reflect on their volunteering work with refugees.
For many students, it is a goal to be able to work with and help a charity that has a special meaning to them, yet before starting the process it may seem like a very difficult activity to pursue.
Our involvement with Slough Refugee Support (SRS) started when we chose to campaign for the charity for Eton’s Social Impact Challenge last year. This is a competition where boys fundraise for a charity of their choice, with the winner being selected as one of Eton’s five charities for the next academic year. The reason we chose SRS was since they really focused on integrating refugees into the country and providing them with important services, as opposed to simply allowing them to arrive into the UK. This includes providing English language classes to parents, helping to enrol children into school, providing legal services and much more.
After the Social Impact Challenge at Eton, we were certain that we wanted to continue working with the charity and continue supporting it through the help of the College. Having been told by a volunteer that the charity had a challenge in maintaining online interaction, we decided to help them put out regular posts for Instagram and Facebook for the UN calendar days of the year. From here, we wanted to find a way to improve social media content for the charity whilst also spreading the incredible stories that certain refugees had told us about—this led to the birth of the Refugee Voices project.
As part of the project, we interview one refugee every fortnight and create a fully anonymous profile based on their experiences and thoughts. From here, we publish the profiles onto a blog on the SRS website, whilst also creating a poster to share through their Facebook and Instagram accounts. This experience has been extremely eye-opening for all three of us. Our first segment of the interviews has focused on Afghanistan and refugees who have moved following the take-over of the Taliban, with some explaining how beautiful/safe Afghanistan had been in the past, whilst others elaborate on how difficult a process it was for them to leave Afghanistan and arrive in the UK. It has been especially striking to hear first-hand accounts of what refugees go through, as well as what problems they are required to deal with throughout their life.
Our aim is to use these profiles to spread awareness about the refugee crisis, as well as sharing the unique stories of refugees which the public would never otherwise hear. Our posts on social media have managed to get very strong interaction, whilst we hope to reach as many people as possible through our online blog. In the long-term, our aim is to create a short pamphlet with all the profiles we have created, divided into different segments based on nationalities.
Our advice to boys wanting to start a similar project would be to take the initiative and reach out to the charities. Our experience simply started by reaching out to the charity and explaining that we would like to get involved and fundraise. Do not wait for the opportunity to come to you, as this is unlikely to ever happen.
Additionally, we think it is very useful to make the most of the opportunities/events that your school offers—our two main fundraising efforts have happened on St Andrews Day and the Eton Action Fair, which a key charity dates in the Eton calendar. With this in mind, along with the endless support and guidance that Eton’s Social Action department is able to provide, it is possible for boys here to have a very large impact on any charity that they wish to support.
So, if you are interested in working with a charity for whatever cause of your choice, we strongly urge you to reach out and offer a helping hand in whatever way possible. Your aid may seem quite small at first, yet you could find yourself having a very large impact in the years to come.
