Pupils create craft bags to give to Afghan children
PUPILS at a Hurst school have helped create craft bags for Afghan refugees.
Dolphin School, on Waltham Road, donated 60 bags filled with pencil cases, pens, white boards, toys, games and crafts for the children arriving in the UK after fleeing their country.
The initiative was led by Sian Moore, the school’s charity and community liaison ambassador, who organised for them to be given to Care4Calais.
The Reading branch, like many others, has refocused its efforts to support refugee families arriving from Afghanistan, following the Taliban takeover.
“I was moved by everything I was seeing on the television,” Ms Moore explained. “There are all these children with nothing.”
The families also have to quarantine together on arrival, due to the pandemic.
“These children are stuck in a hotel room with nothing to do,” she said.
This inspired the craft bags.
“Entertaining children is not easy,” she added. “But drawing can also be a great way of exorcising trauma.”
Sam Jonkers and Val Johnston, from Care4Calais Reading, collected the bags on Friday, October 1, from the school.
The mother and daughter duo thanked pupils at Dolphin School for donating items for the refugee children.
“The amount of thought put into this is lovely,” Ms Jonkers said.
They will deliver the bags directly to hotels where the families are quarantining, she explained.
As part of the collection, Ms Moore delivered an assembly to pupils about what is happening in Afghanistan.
“I tried to get the children to imagine what it would be like, knowing you would never be going back,” she said.
“Our overarching value at the school is kindness,” she explained. “We encourage emotional agility, for students to be able to put themselves in others’ shoes.”
Headmaster Adam Hurst thanked parents of pupils at the school, and said they were always quick to respond to fundraisers and charitable causes.
He said Care4Calais does wonderful work and praised Ms Jonkers and Ms Johnston for their efforts.