Who matters?

The team and I had such an encouraging time working with the year 7 students at St George’s for two days. They were such and enthusiastic and fun year group. I have to say that the Step team were amazing. They worked on some of the hottest days of the year during a week that had a Step day on every day and they remained enthusiastic and engaging throughout! What a week of opportunity for Step. Chris tells me that 700 young people got to spend a whole day with Step during that week.
The days at St George’s were part of their activities week and so the aim was to give the year 7 a fun and interactive day but as it turns out they got so much more. They played games and got to visit a local church whilst learning lots about why they matter, they also received an iMatter journal as a gift.
In fact, over half of the sessions were games and yet they looked at some important topics that seemed to leave a big impact on the students and the staff. In our Fairtrade game some of the students (depending which country team they were) felt the sting of injustice as the game is rigged to favour the UK and USA team. Some of them were incensed at how unfair the game was, and they were challenged to remember how this feels as they go through life making decisions that may affect others.
In the refugee experience they have an activity where they are putting themselves in the shoes of a refugee. It is a hard hitting and thought-provoking session where the students hear real life stories often from one of our guests. We found that the sessions were very impactful this year and that many of the students later wrote in the iMatter session that they were thankful that they lived somewhere safe.
The other activity that the students did was the Justice mat, in which, they get to listen to different tracks about issues of justice whilst engaging with the activity on the mat. From the feedback it seems that the facts they were particularly surprised by were things like the possibility that by 2050 there could be more plastic in the ocean than fish, and that refugees only possessions were those that they can carry with them. They were also impacted by the stories of forgiveness. Many of the prayers that they wrote were expressing gratitude for things that they would normally take for granted.
Normally we try to keep Step days to one theme but we had Identity and Justice as our theme at St George’s, and it was lovely to see how these two themes fit together so perfectly. I heard the phrase throughout the day that ‘today you have found out not only that you matter but that if you matter then so does everybody.’ This link between the two themes seemed to come together naturally as we went through the day.
The fun just kept coming right up until the very end of the day when Jez and Yan did an illusion that illustrated what Jesus has done for us and what we can go and do for others. The audible gasp from the students really made my day.
Thank you to everyone who was involved!
Steph