Most of our project work we did in school. In music class we worked with Mr.O’Brien on the words and recording of our song ‘scam busters’. In Art class we designed posters, costumes and props for our DVD and speak out. In Religion we worked on our research, our surveys, our swap shop which was held at lunch and which was a great success, and our information leaflet which our school secretary helped with. We had to go to all the junior CSPE classes and teach the class about our project. We also had two evening rehearsals for our speak out and we’ll have more before we perform it at the opening of Arts week for the parents. We did a lot of the phone calls and research at home too and some girls called to the local charities at the weekends. We are hoping that we’ll be doing more locally to raise awareness especially if we do the interview on the radio and they play our song.
This year there was two transition year groups with 43 students in total. We decided to work together on the project which started off badly because of the large numbers but then we divided the work evenly and each group had to get there section done so the project could move on. This meant we worked hard because neither group wanted to let the other down. Ms. Denton assigned jobs to groups and individuals and it soon became clear that she was keeping a record of who was doing what and she followed up anyone who didn’t do their tasks. We got better and taking responsibility for our jobs became easier to do. We are still working with the local charities such as the Irish Cancer Society, StVincent de Paul and Enable Ireland.
Concluding Statement
To raise awareness about the issue we created a large colourful information display in our school. We recorded and informative and entertaining DVD and a song using the theme of scam busters to innovatively teach others about how to spot fake charity clothes collections. We produced and had printed locally an information leaflet with the details of the local charity shops in our area, their opening times, their cause, what they accept and their locations. This was given to the junior classes and will be given to the parents on Arts Night and hopefully will be distributed by the local charities in their shops. We organised a top swap shop in our school where students brought in a top which entitled them to a ticket to come to the shop and exchange it for another top. This helped to show that your donations could also help the environment through re-use. We organised a joint meeting of our local charities to take place on the 27th March so we can discuss with them further ideas to tackle the problem. We also forwarded our song to the radio and we are currently trying to get an interview set up.
We feel as a group that we have made people in our school and wider community very aware of the problems created by these ‘bogus’ clothes collections and we have given them very clear advice on how they can make sure they are not scammed. We know people often give to these charities with a good heart but we have shown them very clearly where they can give their clothes to ‘Make their donations Count’. We have helped to lift the lid on these scams and we are helping charities win back the donations they need to raise much needed funds for the good work they carry out.
We would like to see people making the effort to check out where they are giving their unwanted clothes to. We would like to see people making the effort to bring their clothes to their local charity shops. We would like people to realise that with a little care they can really help to end these scams and really make a difference to the revenue of local charities. |
