On 1st April, we, The Powerful Teens, went to Casal de Cima, Rio de Moinhos, for a clean-up action so as to contribute to keep forests clean and to prevent wild fires. We were four pupils from year 9 Class C (Ana Francisca, Hugo, Maria and Matilde) helped by our parents who drove us to the village. After having announced our action and gotten the authorization from the President of the Parish Council, Mr. Miguel Cabral, we met to clean up a forest area of about 50 m2 around the football pitch of the village. We found a lot of garbage like old clothes, paper, plastic bags, packaging and bottles. We even found an old television set! We had the support of our English teacher who helped us plan and monitored our work in English classes. With this action we hope to have contributed to call the population’s awareness to the need to keep forests clean to reduce the risks of wild fires and soil contamination. We addressed SDG 15 “Life on Land” against land degradation and biodiversity loss.
Awareness Campaign against Discrimination by The Winners (Year 9, Class C)
Our eTwinning group, The Winners organised an Awareness Campaign against Discrimination on 22nd March 2016 at "ATL - Centro de Atividades de Tempos Livres"- the local after-school day care centre in Sátão. We showed the animated short film "The Present" (https://vimeo.com/152985022) created by Jacob Frey to a group of 40 children. It is a touching movie about a young boy who prefers to spend his time indoors playing videogames to discovering what’s outside the door until the day his mother decides to give him a special present, which makes it hard for him to concentrate on his video game. The story is based on Fabio Coala’s comic strip named “Perfection.” After watching the film, we started a little discussion about the message conveyed and we invited the children to draw or colour drawings about the film. We also played affection games. In the end, we exhibited the drawings in the room and we offered a candy and a bracelet with a message against discrimination.
We were supported by our parents who drove us to the ATL, our English teacher who gave us suggestions and by the staff of the institution. We intended to call the attention of the children attending the ATL in Sátão to a problem that affects many people in our community and teach them to accept the difference.
Awareness campaign for the problem of pet’s Abandonment byThe Players
From 31st March to 12th April, we, The Players, visited the dog/cat kennel in Rãs, Sátão. We saw so many pets begging for a home and that moved us. So, we volunteered to give them food, we played with them and helped the kennel staff feeding and medicating the animals. Some of them had just arrived! We also took photos of the animals for the blog we created to invite people adopt a pet. In Sátão, we tried to spot abandoned pets on the streets. We fed the ones we found and took photos of them too. We posted the photos on our blog with the location of the animals on Google maps.
We had the support of Bruno’s father who drove us to the kennel and our English teacher who helped us plan and monitor our work in class.
With this action we intended to address the UN Sustainable Development Goal number 11 and call the populations’ attention to the need to provide a home to these stray pets to make the town we live in safer as well. The staff of the kennel invited us to come more often and that more people should follow our example.
VISIT TO THE ELDERLY NURSING HOME IN SÁTÃO
Guilherme and Rita spent a day at the local Elderly Nursing Home volunteering our time during Easter holidays to help carers, from 20th March to 30th March. They prepared a set of activities. Watch the video.
CAMPAIGN AGAINST HOMOPHOBIA
eTwinning group The Unicorns wanted to change people’s idea of homophobia. The action was carried out at school, on 18th March 2016 which was Open School Day. We made Origami Fortune Tellers and played the game with people who visited our school on Open Day. It consisted of 8 numbers in multicolored hearts (with the colours of the The rainbow flag which is the symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) pride and LGBT social movements) and the word hidden under all 8 parts was the word ‘Homophobia’. The challenge was to say the first word that came into their minds when they heard the word ‘homophobia’. We questioned 60 people. Most of them responded “gay” and some were rude and used inappropriate language as a reaction. Others didn’t know what homophobia meant and some of them even thought about spiders or fear. With this ‘little game’ we realised that people in our community are not aware of the concept and that they still hold discriminatory beliefs towards homosexuals. We hope we have raised participants’ awareness towards the issue and the need to stop discrimination against people for their sexual orientations.
The Good Tunes’ Campaign Against Homophobia
Our campaign took place in Viseu, on 24th March, between 2 p.m and 7 p.m. It consisted in recording people's opinions about transgender individuals. Four pupils participated in this action, Catarina João, Beatriz, Catarina Gaspar and João Paulo. João filmed people's reactions while Catarina João, Catarina Gaspar and Beatriz interviewed them. We would like to thank Catarina João's and Catarina Gaspar's mother who drove us to Viseu, so that we could accomplish the campaign. In addition, we shared the video with the people who gave us their opinion.
We will broadcast the video in our school on the 17th May International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT) that was “created in 2004 to draw the attention of policymakers, opinion leaders, social movements, the public and the media to the violence and discrimination experienced by LGBTI people internationally”. (See IDAHOT official webpage: http://dayagainsthomophobia.org/)
THE BLUE RIBBON CAMPAIGN by The Untouchable (Year 9 Class A)
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month and T.A.G members took action during the week of GYSD, from 15th to 22nd April. In Agrupamento de Escolas de Sátão (PT) eTwinning group, The Untouchable, organised a campaign that was held on the 18th April in Escola Secundária Frei Rosa Viterbo. Carolina, Letícia, Telma,Tatiana e Miguel made 200 blue ribbons and 36 blue masks. They decorated a table and created an awareness video. They distributed the campaign flyers given by the Portuguese Commission for the Protection of Children and Young People and blue ribbons throughout the school. They invited their schoolmates to wear a blue T-shirt and the blue ribbon to show their fight against children abuse. They called students to join a flash mob which consisted of one minute of silence to reflect on the ill-treatment of children. The objective of this action was to alert our community to the issue. We have disseminated our action in eTwinning Live, on Facebook and our school webpage and invited other eTwinners and our partners to leave a message in the TAG Blue Ribbon Campaign mural: (http://padlet.com/mariasilva_u2/7zqm3v7fn1kk)
BORN TO SHINE’S ACTION: MEET AGAINST WATER POLLUTION
On 21st March, in a joint celebration of the International Day of Forests and World Water Day, our eTwinning group Born To Shine organised a meet to debate issues related to this year’s theme “Forests and Water - Sustain Life and Livelihoods”. We distributed bracelets with the colours of the Sustainable Development Global Goals addressed by our action to raise the participants’ awareness to water pollution and climate change. We had previously spread posters we created with the help of our Visual Education teacher, Cristina Esteves, and we spread the word and invited people to our meet throughout school on Open School Day on 18 March.
50 Shades of Portugal Forest Clean-up
eTwinning group 50 Shades of Portugal organized a clean-up action of a forest in Silvã de Cima. The first step towards this action consisted in talking to the President of the Parish of Silvã de Cima to ask permission to clean the forest area. On 30th March three pupils of the group, Marcelo, Rafael and Gonçalo together with their friend Fabiano met in Silvã de Cima for the clean-up. They collected all sort of garbage: plastic, bags, tyres, crates of bear, buckets and some tubes. The garbage was then taken to the recycling banks. The action was disseminated on our school webpage and on the T.A.G project Twinspace.
The Smiler's action: Against Racism Campaign