On Friday 19th January, our Youth Alliance Coordinator attended Derby Moor Academy to support their whole-school drop down day with workshops around Positive Campaigning.
Derby Moor Academy supported our Derby City White Ribbon Day campaign by showing the presentation and video to their staff and students, and encouraging all to wear white ribbons. It sparked enthusiasm and initiated conversations and action amongst students however also highlighted the need for campaigning education - support around how students should run a campaign successfully, and how to foresee and tackle consequences or adverse reactions and responses to a campaign or debate.
We presented 'How to argue constructively' - a presentation kindly given to us by Claire MacDonald, Managing Director of MacMartin, a local marketing agency who promoted our White Ribbon Day campaign and video at a Marketing Derby business networking event that they hosted. Using the presentation, we talked about successful campaigns and projects that we had been involved in previously and how you can approach a campaign differently but still achieve positive outcomes.
The key points mentioned were:
Be informed
Be understanding and respectful
Lead by example
Understand the consequences
The young people and their staff were fully involved in the discussion and bought their own topics that they were passionate about, including gender equality, human rights protests, war and international conflict, homelessness and mental health. Using their themes, we discussed what a successful and safe campaign could look like, how to be the best representative for your cause, and how to organise and plan to avoid consequences further down the line. We also discussed how can students have their voices heard within the school setting, and we heard from the students about the value of their student leadership board - how to engage, how to take part and how to raise concerns.
Campaigning positively and arguing constructively are useful skills not often available to learn in an educational setting, and so we do hope that the young people were able to discover new and effective ways to stand for their own beliefs and values in a campaign setting as well as in everyday life scenarios.
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