Emmanuel School, Exeter, Devon
BBC World - Have Your Say activity
Students from Emmanuel School, an independent Christian day school for boys and girls aged 5-16, attended a Global News workshop at the Global Centre in Exeter.
Two mixed age groups, 12-14 and 14-16, were exploring 'global issues' at school. Having looked at the issue of trade the week before, students attended a workshop to explore the issue of 'Third World Debt'.
Each group discussed what debt was, how it arose and how it is used in our society, e.g. for buying houses (mortgage), for purchasing goods and services such as cars and holidays, for setting up businesses and enabling students to further their education (students loans). All students agreed that it was right that these loans should be repaid.
A brief history of 'Third World Debt' was then given to the students. Having agreed that the debts individuals incur in our society should be repaid, they were asked to consider whether the debts owed by governments of poor countries should also be repaid, and if not why not.
Students then looked at several articles about debt from on-line news services, including links from the BBC Have Your Say page. Using information they had found from these articles, and what they had learnt from the earlier discussion, they drafted a response to the question on the BBC Have Your Say page: Should the G8 countries cancel all debt to developing nations?
There was a mix of opinions on this (see right hand box), though all students were able to see how unjust heavy levels of debt were on the poorest people in the world's poorest countries.
The previous week's workshop exploring
the benefits of fairtrade pays off as students storm the fairtrade stall
at the Global Centre!
Who gets what? Ensuring no one is shortchanged from
fairtrade purchases!
"The lessons have inspired us to do more in this vein and make good use of the excellent resources available to us via the Global News Project. As a school we have become supporters of the Project through this connection and we look forward to that connection growing". Emmanuel School Teacher evaluation of Global News activities.
Quote me on that!
Some of the comments submitted by students from Emmanuel School to the BBC Have Your Say on debt:
"I think that rich countries should cancel the majority of the debt and give poor countries a chance to build themselves up. Right now, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer..." Paul
"I think that Aid money from governments like the UK doesn't always end up helping those who need it most. According to Oxfam, Burundi and Eritrea spend more on weapons than on health and education... There should be a boundary or guidelines around 'giving' and narrow it down to certain countries and people." Helena and Scarlett
"Corrupt leaders who are no longer in power mostly accumulated this debt and this has been passed down from them to the current leaders of the countries... the debt should be dropped, or at least lower the interest rates significantly, and more aid should be given by countries who are better off." Toby
"I think the debt should be cancelled because G8 countries have everything they need while the Third World countries have barely anything. I think the G8 countries should stop being SO GREEDY and cancel the debt!" Samuel
"Debt should not be completely cancelled and countries should be limited on what to spend it on, e.g. farms for growing food, education, health, government." Sarah, Alice and Emily
"The HIPC [initiative] is blackmail! Poor countries are being told that they have to do whatever the HIPC [initiative] says. But [at least] HIPC does give the countries the chance to give the people the chance to spend their money on something else apart from debt." Sam and A.J.
