Food Fest at UGS 

On the 28th of November, a new event called Food Fest was launched at Urmston Grammar School. By attending, you were given the opportunity to purchase food and drink and engage and partake in activities and most importantly through all these fun and games, you were contributing to a charity: ‘Doctors Without Borders’. 

‘Doctors Without Borders’ is a charity that provides humanitarian medical care. It is a non-governmental organisation of French origin known for its projects in conflict zones. Hoping to contribute their backing with a monetary donation to the ongoing situation in the Middle East, students at Urmston Grammar decided to utilise this charity as a way to display their support and concern for the current tragic events. 

I spoke to Sally Diar-Bakerley, a year 12 student who helped to organise and run this event. Sally explained that she baked cookies and brownies to be sold at the Food Fest as well as helping set up beforehand and run stalls throughout. Activities included henna and guess the weight of the jar and with a brilliant variety of food and drink to sample, the students were able to raise £468 for this charity. When asked why they chose ‘Doctors Without Borders’, Sally told me that they felt they wanted to show their allegiance with one side of the conflict but they had to go about this explicitly: schools are not allowed to show bias or support for only one side as this could possible trigger anti-semitism or islamophobia in the education setting. Thus, the students selected this charity in the hopes that they could contribute inexplicitly to this cause. As school cannot share an opinion, they aimed to take on the responsibility of spreading awareness by gathering interest for the topic among those who attended the event. 

To conlude, Sally summarised that she would ‘absolutely do something like this again,’ as she believes expressing support for a good cause should be celebrated and encouraged in schools.

Sylvie Poupaert