Youth Page

We’ve been engaging with schools and young people, whose response to SOS has been fantastic. Here’s some of what’s been happening.

Year 7 charity disco

Firstly, a group of Year 7 students from Manhood Community College organised a charity disco in aid of SOS and “CLICK”, at the new community centre. This was a spontaneous event organised by the young people themselves, with assistance from parents and Police Community Support Officers. We had a stand at the disco and put this sign up:

The event was a great success, and raised a magnificent £170 for SOS! At our stands during the summer, we displayed this sign, and told people about the great support we’ve been getting from young people.

It is really encouraging to see young people taking this sort of initiative and actively supporting community groups. They can be very proud of their efforts and we thank them all, again.

Sos on the curriculum!

Lower school students actually studied SOS as an example of a community group in their PCSE classes. As part of this process we were invited to give an assembly. Richard Dearsley & Roland O’Brien gave a presentation, and were able to talk to some of the students afterwards. Roland said “We were really encouraged by the reception we got, and the enthusiasm of the students who wanted to take an active role in supporting SOS’s work”.

Manhood students get active!

We were delighted to back to the Manhood Community College again, this time to meet a delegation of Lower School students. They handed over some 140 letters to District Councillor Fred Robertson, who agreed to present them to Chichester District Council.

This is a shining example of genuine grass-roots activism, and a measure of the strength of feeling about the coast defence issue on the Manhood Peninsula. By taking this action the students sent a very strong message to the authorities. We expected the Council to treat their letters, and the concerns they have raised, with the respect they deserved.

Young people get criticised for not being interested in their community, but these letters demonstrate how untrue and unfair that is. The letters were written by well-informed, independent-minded people, proud about the place they live in, and passionate about defending it. They recognised that if coast defences are abandoned, the social and economic affects won’t just hurt them, their families and friends, but the whole community (and with it, their futures).

The Council did respond, by giving an assembly presentation in the autumn term.

SOS would like the youngsters to know that we will make sure their message is spread beyond the District Council. There are many other bodies concerned with coast defence that claim to “speak for” or “engage with” the community. Often, this simply isn’t true: they ignore what people say, and only represent a tiny, exclusive minority. SOS will make sure that whenever a body claims to “speak for the community”, they are told about these letters and the plain message they convey.

We hope you youngsters will continue to take a spirited part in community affairs, and look forward to working with you in the future.

SIDLESHAM PRIMARY SCHOOL LEARN ABOUT COAST DEFENCE

SOS was very pleased to take part in an outing of Year 3 children from Sidlesham Primary School, along Selsey’s West & Medmerry Beaches.

Firstly the children were shown the 40m length of sea wall at West Beach, which collapsed on the 1st March, by SOS’s Roland O’Brien.

“They were really impressed with the size of the hole behind the damaged sea wall, especially when I explained to them that the sea had excavated it in just 3 days. They found it difficult to believe this had been someone’s garden & patio, until they noticed just how close houses are to the hole.”

The group then moved to the beach near the coastguard station, for a talk about erosion and an explanation of why the sea wall collapsed.

“We got the whole class to ‘test’ the strength of the wall, by trying to push it over! Fortunately, it survived, and I was able to show them that it is the loss of material from the beach in front of the wall which makes it vulnerable to failure.”

The class then took part in related activities, including a beach sculpture competition. They were later joined by Linda Bowman of SOS, who gave a talk about Medmerry beach, and a tour of the fairground (one of the businesses that might be affected by coast defence proposals).

The group then made their way to the Oasis Leisure Centre, where Bunn Leisure had kindly allowed them to make use of its facilities.

Kirsten Cookson, Year 3 teacher, said “the visit was a great introduction to the term’s topic of coast erosion”, and thanked her helpers, Amanda Jarrett and Sally Grantham, for their support.

SEAL PRIMARY SCHOOL campaign posters

The Council of Seal Primary asked SOS to do a presentation about coast defence to the students, who’d been learning about erosion during the summer term.

We were given a good reception by the Council, and were able to ask them for their views about coast defence, and SOS. We got some brilliant suggestions for our campaign which we have subsequently used, to good effect.

One of these suggestions was the use of posters made by the students for our display stand. Some great posters were made, which we had encapsulated and now use on our stand, along with letters from Manhood and Sidlesham students, which shows the involvement of young people in our campaign.

Tee shirt activists; international activists

In the summer we had SOS tee shirts printed, and at the various events we attended we invited young people to wear the shirts for publicity shots. As a result, we got coverage in the local press, and in an international publication by Friends of the Earth (FoE), which has gone around the world... click here  (then go to pages 35-38 of the document).

In the FoE document, young people from Selsey have their say, along with young people from all over the world.