This weeks wellbeing tutorial was continuing on the second pillar of Protecting against Bullying and Respecting Diversity.

This week we moved to the topic of Charity.

Firstly we started out by gaining a definition of what Charity was to us. The answers from the boys ranged from ‘giving money‘ to ‘helping someone in need‘ to ‘helping the poor be less poor‘

The definition that we will use is A charity is an organisation set up to provide help and/or raise money for those in need. Charities usually raise money through donations and have volunteers that help

We then wrote down on the whiteboard as many different charities that we knew. This was quite surprising by how few actual charities the students collectively knew. However, it also did highlight some charities that students were actively giving to or had a liking to.

The students were then shown a list of fictional charities;

They were asked to state which of these charities they would most likely give to. The top charity was ‘Hug a Dog‘. This then led to a discussion as to why they would choose to support animals instead of humans. The explanation from some was that humans can help themselves whereas we have a responsibility to look after the animals.

The second most popular choice was ‘Train the Teacher‘, students felt that educating the next generation is of vital importance. That if lower economic countries also had better education that their countries economy would benefit in the future. They also felt that having better-educated children in less developed countries would lead to an impact on all of the above-mentioned charities.

The third most popular was ‘Forest friends‘. These students felt this issue had global importance and would have an impact on more people. As with declining forests, this will have an impact on climate change which affects everyone.

We finished our tutorial by posing the question of whether we had a greater responsibility to be giving to charity as we have the ability and means to do so. This was summed up as a personal choice but also the point was made that charity is more than just giving money. We can give time to help someone. We can educate someone. We can donate clothing. We can reach out into the world and spread happiness.