Partnerships

PAULS4ALL UK SUMMARY

The global pandemic continued to make partnership work this year challenging to carry out but it has also highlighted its importance given the stark impact of COVID on exacerbating educational inequalities. I am very proud of the work the St Paul’s community has achieved, from fundraising and volunteering led by the various Pauls4Alls committees (Lower Eighth charity and volunteering and the Upper Eighth Thomas Gresham committee) to re-starting much of the in person programmes on site: from our highly successful Y10-12 Saturday morning and summer school STEM enrichment courses to Y13 University preparation; collaboration with the Barnes Music and Literary Festivals and entrepreneurship within the West London Partnership. It has also been great to welcome primary schools back to St Paul’s, from weekly swimming to our world cup football day and new Primary Professors programme. With the Ukraine crisis unfolding earlier in the year, we have also developed a strong partnership with St Mary’s Ukrainian school in London, supporting hundreds of refugees through conversational classes and sports activities. Finally, we have also maintained a strong virtual programme, in particular through Colet Mentoring, a first-of-its-kind peer learning app used in the UK and also in Africa and Latin America. This represents a fruitful collaboration within our wider community – a joint venture with two OPs with support from staff, boys, St Paul’s Girls and the Mercers company. I hope you enjoy reading about this and many other projects in our section and thanks to my 50+ colleagues that have led or worked on the programmes during the year. ❚

Stuart Block Director of Partnerships

CHARITY PARTNERSHIPS

Reconsidering the Meaning of Charity

Those of us sentimental for the inoffensive affectations of slightly overplayed popular music might recall the release of a song in 2018, somewhat unassumingly titled God’s Plan. The accompanying music video shows Drake, the rapper behind the song, donating a million dollars around Miami – by giving wads of cash to unsuspecting families, by surprising a student with a scholarship cheque, by gifting cards to women in a shelter, and more. There are sing-alongs, festivities, moments of rapt emotion and tearful bliss. Family members weep and embrace. It’s heartwarming stuff (honestly).

But Drake’s generosity aside, there is a tension as to what God’s Plan purports charity to be. There is no doubting the objective merit of the rapper’s actions, but it’s hard to escape the conclusion that what he does is at least slightly self-serving – Drake gives willingly, but not anonymously. The express publicity of his generosity recalls a long history of celebrity humanitarianism. “He has bought fame and paid cash for it,” Mark Twain once remarked about Andrew Carnegie’s libraries, in reference to the industrialist’s distinguished philanthropic career.

For sure, being self-serving need not detract from the merit of Drake’s actions. But it does deviate from what charity actually is. Tellingly, the word charity derives from the Latin caritas, a word commonly used to denote a distinct form of love. At its core, honest charity stems from the same sense of compassion for the common good – not from selfinterest. And it need not be confined to monetary munificence – charitable acts, done in-kind, can mean as much to a person as a bundle of cash. With Drake’s actions in mind, we are left with the question as to why we are, or should be, charitable in the first place. This much is clear: we should not be charitable primarily to help ourselves. That is to say, we should not do charity in order to rid ourselves of guilt or improve our social standing – maintaining a wholly inappropriate sense of martyrdom at all times. We should not be exposing ourselves to glaring inequality in order to ‘prove’ our own morality and so gain the sympathy and the respect of others. True charity is not a selfish instinct, but a compassionate one. It is not from a place of guilty privilege, or baseless superiority (especially) that charity should originate, rather from one of altruism and in respect of charity received oneself. In the more concise words of Mother Teresa, “charity isn’t about pity, it is about love.” It’s about extending a hand, without judgement, to those we might just be able to help.

This personal level of offering a hand to those who may need it is a notion that is entirely valued, but, in an ideal world, charitable organisations would not exist. Now, this might seem like a controversial statement from a charity committee such as Pauls4All, but this neglects the precise definition of charity that has already been set out. Charities

are there to help fight against the numerous inequalities that exist within society: that is why there is such a large number of charities with a range of goals. From attempting to stop the effects of climate change in order to provide future generations with the same opportunities as current ones, to tackling mental health issues and providing people with support so that they can be on a level playing field with everyone else, charities identify inequalities and seek to remedy them. Whilst charities do a vital job of this, it should not be one that is so heavily relied upon in our society.

That is not to detract from their necessity and great value that charities provide because though undesired within society, certain inequalities seem difficult to dismantle and charitable organisations are essential in trying to reduce them by helping those who are struggling. These organisations are the collaborative effort of altruistic minds with greater wealth than the individual and so can often bring larger scale changes to a society or people in need. That is not to say that the individual alone cannot have the same impact. A compassionate act of kindness, volunteering time or any amount of money, can brighten someone’s day and make a real difference. Everyone has the capacity to be charitable, regardless of social status or financial security. All that is truly required is a genuine will to serve others. Similarly, everyone needs charity themselves; while not necessarily financial, receiving acts of kindness can be appreciated by anyone. Genuine acts of love and service, money aside, can have a lasting impact in helping to create a happier and more benevolent society. ❚

Wentao Huang, Flex O’Brien, Noah Leach and Jash Jhaveri

Charity isn’t about pity, it is about love.

Mother Teresa

SPS CHARITY OF THE YEAR 2022 SUPPORTING LOCAL CHARITIES

In response to feedback from the St Paul’s Community, it was decided that it would be appropriate to select a women’s charity for the Pauls4All charity of the year. The school voted for Women’s Aid, a well-known UK charity, to increase awareness about issues such as domestic abuse, and try to help combat them. The main goal of the charity is to ‘eradicate violence against women and girls’; campaigning has taken many forms – therapy, research, legal help, and fundraising. St Paul’s was happy to support such an admirable cause.

A workshop was held in school about the history of legislation to protect women: while it looked at the past injustice, it was still optimistic for the future and how we are getting closer to equality (although there is still work to be done). To raise awareness and support the charity, St Paul’s was therefore delighted to hold various mufti days, presentations, and most recently the whole school walk where we raised nearly £15,000. ❚

Christian Bulmer, Leo Wen and Sabeer Sawhney This year, in addition to our more longstanding partnerships and UK charity of the year, we have been supporting Friends of Barnes Common and the London Sports Trust.

Friends of Barnes Common play an active role in the upkeep of Barnes Common, Vine Road Recreation Ground, and the Leg o’ Mutton, and this year we have aimed to inspire the community to appreciate these local natural beauty spots and support the charity in conserving biodiversity. We were delighted to hold a mufti day as well as producing an educational video on the benefits of Barnes Common to the local community.

We also collaborated with The London Sports Trust, which aims to inspire positive change for disadvantaged young Londoners through the power of sport, training & life skills to improve life outcomes as well as physical and mental health. We thought it fitting to fundraise for this charity as St Paul’s has a strong profile for sports participation amongst the student body. We, as the Pauls4All committee, organised a 5-a-side football tournament for the Fourth and Fifth Forms within our school for the charity and many of us volunteered for the charity too. ❚

Jacob Leigh and Mustafa Sadeeq

The Walk

What’s the point of today? It’s not as if walking changes anything. It’s not as if a few steps ever changed society.

With each step we trudge onwards, wondering how better to have spent our time

But look! The sun pierces through the bright foliage and glitters upon the river; each shard enticing us off our phones, and towards the day ahead.

With each step we trudge onwards, now enjoying the glorious day, all rife with the thrill of change, the reverie of charitable endeavour and back towards the school we go.

Marching onwards – let’s go. But are we making a difference, is anyone noticing or just complaining about the Paulines taking up the sidewalk?

Although, here is a curious passerby, asking what this is all about. We answer, and she is amazed and she wishes us the best. Maybe we do make a difference?

And I see a man, head-to-toe in pink, he smiles, happy to get everyone together. A time to be happy, a time that lasts forever.

Varun Vashisht and Shivan Arora