Following our collaboration with Voices for Refugees and Traffick Light to host the event “Write For Rights”, we took some time to reflect upon the experience as a whole and the possible areas for improvement and opportunities going forward.
Strengths:
- Location/placement of drop boxes was really convenient
- Teachers were more involved than before (eg. English teachers incorporate into their classes)
- Cross campuses: UWC Thailand also involved this year
- Novelty of writing letters- it’s a different experience to writing an email, more personal
- Good adaptability by the Amala focus group
- Executed well considering remote adaptations and other restrictions
Opportunities:
- Write for Rights letter-writing in mentor time (good use of time)
- Begin planning process earlier (should be a lot easier if we choose to do it next year)
- Casting a larger net of inspiration from the school community (send out a google form to students so they can express things that they are passionate about)
- A “live” case study, so have someone deliver the talk about something they are passionate about: might be easier following COVID-19
- Standardising the structure of the case study focused on the letter writer, more of a scaffold
- Cross-focus group meetings before WFR next year: all students can share inputs rather than just the chairs
- Online writing option? (email or google docs?)
- Informing teachers earlier beforehand to give them notice to adjust their schedules and planning to incorporate letter writing into class time
- A hybrid of dropboxes and live event for the future might be more engaging to students
- Social media promotion via Instagram
- Outside of the student community (reaching out to parents or other UWCs)
- Incorporate the letter-writing into a lesson (eg. English teachers use it as an opportunity to show their students how to format and write formal letters)
Weaknesses:
- Accessibility of information: the Padlet was a little hard to navigate
- Clashing with different events running during the same week (could we build those events into it?)
- IWD and Write for Rights felt like separate events
- Clashing with G12 mocks, reconsider a time (maybe Human Rights Week), looking at HS academic calendar specifically
- More information regarding writing and submitting case studies
- Organisation, time management and deadlines
- Give teachers enough time to consider how to integrate lessons
- Realistic expectations of how much work Amala as a focus group can do: better distribution of work
- Lack of “hype” surrounding the event: maybe in-person elements can be reintroduced next year?
- Communication with service has to be clearer: was unsure of the number of drop boxes as well as the final dates until too close to the event
Threats:
- COVID restrictions preventing in-person elements
- Timeframe for planning: plans only finalised in the last two weeks
- No centralised location meant that some letters were written for the sake of it: no genuine connection to the issues being addressed
- Letters didn’t go into the boxes, lack of clarity of what is required – clarify expectations of quality