Being mindful about the future with new Social Justice Society

Y10-13 girls passionate about tackling important national and international problems can now join the newly formed Social Justice Society. The Society will be run by Sixth Form student Evie and other forward-thinking pupils.

Evie said “As young women, we have a voice that we can use to help others, and by finding others with similar ideas, we can team together to raise awareness on issues that people may not learn about in normal lessons.”

The society looks at events through the year that have an impact on pupils personally, on the community or on a much larger global scale, including racism, women’s rights and mental health awareness.

The focus for October is on Black History Month and members have been active in raising awareness for Black contributions that may not have been acknowledged by history.

One particular icon being brought into the spotlight is Katherine Johnson, the African-American NASA mathematician whose calculations were essential for the success of the first U.S. manned spaceflight in 1961 and inspired the film ‘Hidden Figures’.

“We thought this was relevant particularly for our school as I feel very proud of the number of girls going into STEM careers and it can encourage our girls to not only break boundaries with ethnicity, but also with gender.”

To celebrate and bring awareness to Black History Month, the Social Justice Society held an assembly for younger years to educate girls about more lesser known accomplishments from Black people and recognise the previous and ongoing discrimination they face. They also held a movie night to show ‘Hidden Figures’.

Going forward, the Society will focus on how they can help Palestinian citizens, following the US government’s decision to stop giving millions of dollars of aid to the country. They hope to have a speaker about the topic, in addition to having a stall at the annual school Christmas Fair to raise money for the cause.