How do we know children want to help?
We asked them! We don’t often hear from our youngest citizens about what they care about, how they’d like to change the issues that affect them, and who they think can help them. And yet, prior research shows that young people need an early start in order to stay “highly involved” throughout their life*.
In a survey of almost 400 Key Stage 2 pupils conducted in 2009, we inquired into the concerns of young children and found them to be remarkably empathetic, aware, and ready to mobilise. Children are also full of creative and original ideas to make the world a better place and why it’s important to help.
Acting Locally, Acting Globally
An overwhelmingly high proportion of children consider themselves to be improving the lives for the people they know, through their interpersonal actions. However, few children engage in wider community-oriented behaviours that involve helping their wider community. Go Givers promotes caring and concern, both for children’s immediate context, as well as for the world-at-large.
Go Givers has the potential to convert what seems to be an innate level of caring and compassion in young children into citizenship-oriented behaviours that will last a lifetime.
Go Givers is well equipped to further the existing attitudes of children towards helping by providing age-appropriate learning resources and active citizenship opportunities for the range of issues of concern to children, and by empowering pupils with the skills and confidence to address these issues.
Education for Democracy
Pupils demonstrate a high level of trust in their council and government’s ability and/or responsibility to address the local and global issues they care about. In the current climate of political apathy and disenchantment, it’s our job to preserve children’s trust in the democratic system!
Is it important to help people? What issues are the most important? What can children do to help? Is it important to be informed about the issues you want to tackle? These are just some of the questions we asked pupils.
It’s clear to us that children want to make a difference!
