Students take action to support Black Lives Matter

Following the death of George Floyd in the USA, five Year 13 students decided to take action to help raise awareness about racial inequality.

Five Year 13 students spent their pre-university Sociology lesson taking action to raise awareness about racial inequality, educate themselves further and support the Black Lives Matter organisation. Black Lives Matter is an international human rights movement which builds power to bring justice, healing and freedom to Black people across the globe. The movement, founded in 2013 returned to national headlines in May 2020 following the death of African American George Floyd during a police arrest in Minneapolis, USA.

The Sixth Form group were challenged to achieve as much as they could in 20 minutes and the steps they made were inspiring. 

The students alongside their teachers made the following steps:

•    Signed five petitions on change.org and signed up to their notifications
•    Donated to the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust and Black Lives Matter
•    Watched actor and presenter James Cordon's speech about George Floyd's death
•    Started to watch Barack Obama's speech
•    E-mailed their MP and shared with others how to do this
•    Watched the "science of racism"
•    Discussed with family members the issue of white privilege
•    Created content for their Instagram activism account
•    Discussed the book "The Lost Decade" and added it to the Sociology reading list

Our prefect team have also worked hard this week to compile a wide range of resources on racial inequality which was shared with Pipers staff and students.