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Impact Day 2009
"It's Time to Get Fair"
On Saturday 7th November members of Impact from across the country came together as part of their campaign calling for Britain to become a fairer place for the poorest in our society. They came from Croydon, Manchester, Birmingham, Bolton, the Wirral, and Burnley to say that they want a fairer world for teenagers.
In their groups they had been taking action locally to highlight the issue of youth poverty and now it was time to do something together. The young people from West Croydon said "It was great to see how many others were supporting this campaign, it was really encouraging. We thought it was nice to hear other Impact groups' views on the Get Fair campaign."
They took action together to call on the leaders of the main political parties to end UK poverty by sending them some of the large YCW campaign postcards to highlight this issue. They are asking Gordon Brown MP, David Cameron MP and Nick Clegg MP to make concrete commitments to help eradicate this injustice in our society. Let's hope the politicians listen to our young people and make Britain fairer.
The day was a chance to make new friends and meet old from across the Impact groups. Florence from Urmston said "I was really touched by how friendly and welcoming the other groups were... a bunch of awesome people made a brilliant day."
The teenagers began to explore the principals of Catholic social teaching and looking at what they mean, and how these can be lived out. Each group has signed up to living out one of the principals now that they've gone home. Roisin from the Rockferry group said "It's great to know you're not the only teenagers in the universe who are active in their faith... It's great to know young people aren't all evil like the newspapers say and that there are other groups trying to make a difference in their communities that will benefit a wide variety of people. It's really good to know I'm making a difference and Impact, as well as being loads of fun, helps to form me into a better person and develop my personality."
So what did Impact think of the day? Here the group from Urmston in Manchester share their reflection on the day with us:
Our trip to Derby was an enjoyable one. After our tiring early morning coach ride, we finally arrived at our destination and we were greeted with a very warm welcome. We were invited in for some refreshments while we waited for other groups to arrive. Eventually, when everyone had arrived we were introduced to the YCW staff, who would be our inspiration for the day.
We played several ice breaker games. During one we discovered that one of group was the tallest there and another was the smallest, for which Sam received a prize. We were then split into groups in which we discussed the issues that have been uncounted in our own lives. Following the ‘See' section, we created role plays and posters to show what we had discussed within the see section and how we felt about it. By seeing other groups out in this way, we were able to empathise through the gospel with other people. We were all able to pick out of the role plays the one who was representing Jesus.
At the end of the day, we wrote some ideas about individual topics of youth poverty. These ideas were then put onto paper feet which were then stuck onto ‘Cornerstones' which created a ‘pathway' out of poverty.
We then returned to our IMPACT groups for the ‘action' part of the day. We decided that we will perform an action on' Commitment to others' which we will undertake within the parish soon. We, as a group, decided that commitment to others covers the majority of the seven cornerstones of the path to poverty.
We ended the day with a candle lit liturgy, which created a peaceful and thoughtful atmosphere. This was then followed by pizza and music.
As a group, we feel that as a result of the day, we have bonded more and feel ready to continue to move forwards. The theme of the day was ‘Steps, Cornerstones and Pathways.' And it certainly helped to ‘cement' our group together even more for the future.
Article written by Sam Kirsten (President), Luke O'Keeffe (Treasurer), Florence Sheen (Secretary),
Nathan Maguire, Martyn Leigh, Alex Eckersley and Sam Eckersley
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