Caritas, Humilitas Sinceritas Concern for others has always been a key characteristic of the St Swithun’s community as reflected by the word Caritas (meaning a Christian love of humankind or charity) in the school’s motto. When scouring the school archives, we discovered that St Swithun’s started up its first charitable society, known as The Mission Society sometime between 1890-1892 to collaborate with the Blackfriars Settlement in London, which enabled women and children from the poorer districts of London to have access to education and excursions to the seaside and countryside. Later, in 1906, St Swithun’s joined the United Girls’ School Mission, which was set up in 1897 to run all the charitable work in the Peckham area of London. The UGSM went on to create a new settlement for women called the Peckham Settlement and a house was bought at 19 Peckham Road, to use as a base to train people in the principles of charitable work. Each school in the UGSM (including St Swithun’s) had a representative from their Old Girls’ society to spearhead a fundraising committee and collect funds for the work of the Settlement. The pupils would raise money by donating clothes and toys, for example. Over the course of the decades, many Old Girls and teachers from St Swithun’s worked there and kept the school up to date on the Settlement’s progress and work. These efforts continued for many years until 1996 when Dr Harvey, then Headmistress, spoke with Ken McSteen (former IT and design & technology teacher at St Swithun’s) asking him to oversee a group of students who wished to have a more local focus for their charitable work. Ken kindly agreed to take on responsibility for this group of students known then as the Social Services Committee and together they began to think of a name for the society. Bizarrely one morning, he noticed a recovery service sticker on the back of his car which said ‘ASSIST’ and he suggested it to the girls,
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who liked it immediately and came up with a meaning for each letter which reflected what charitable work meant to them: A Assist S Self S Sacrifice I Involvement S Service T Tolerance Under their new leader, this bright and vibrant U6 committee acted upon their desire to do more locally and set about asking for more active involvement from the St Swithun’s community. Some of the activities they successfully ran included working with local primary schools,
donating unclaimed lost property to the homeless shelter in Winchester, visiting people in hospital, running hospital radio and supporting local Alms houses. Now, an incredible 25 years later, ASSIST is still going strong and represents the name of the students’ fundraising and charitable work. Each year, a girl from the incoming U6 is appointed as Head of ASSIST and a number of others are asked to be part of the ASSIST team. They now oversee, plan and encourage all of their fundraising activities for the following year, as well as organising the voting for which three charities will benefit from their efforts. It is a very important and highly valued committee continuing to uphold Caritas at St Swithun’s today. ■
