Stowe School sixth-formers visit Rohingya refugee camps

STOWE school has taken a group of its sixth-form students to visit Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh on a trip that it hopes will make them more aware of their privilege.

Twelve pupils from the £12,000-aterm private school, aged between 15 and 17, spent two days with children’s charity Unicef, visiting learning centres and child-friendly spaces.

“The point was not to make them feel guilty but to offer perspective,” said Dr Fitz Smith, a teacher on the trip, “and to look at the privileges we have, not just as people from a first-world country, but also a public school.”

The camps in southern Bangladesh are home to 700,000 Rohingya, a Muslim minority who have fled persecution in neighbouring Burma. Around half are children, about half of them orphaned by the conflict.

Their experience couldn’t be further from life at Stowe, in leafy Buckinghamshire, where fees for boarding pupils are up to £12,200 a term for an elite education in an English Heritage 18thcentury mansion.

“Visiting the camps made me feel very lucky,” said 17-year-old Hermione, who met girls younger than herself who have to support younger siblings – “something I don’t have to do”.

Jan de Gale, a teacher who organised the trip, described the camp’s “child friendly spaces” as a “haven”.

“The spaces were so colourful and airy,” Mrs de Gale said. “We were expecting doom and gloom and were surprised by how happy and positive the children were: they were inspirational.”