YOUNG ACTIVISTS
Even with a million copies of the book in circulation, WAWWD believe that the Best way to teach people how to change the world is to start when they’re Young. A couple of years ago, with funding from the Aldridge Foundation, WAWWD began to recruit young people from Schools and colleges in England to be part of their Young Speakers programme. After a training course, they are sent out to do presentations in their schools and communities. Last year the Young Speakers spread the “We Are What We Do” message to over 50.000 children
THE LITTLE THINGS IN LIFE
We Are What We Do, or WAWWD, is both a charity and a movement. It is a primarily environmental, but it is also designed to improve human relations. Its bible, for want of a better world, is a book called Change the World for a Fiver, which offers a list of simple suggestions.
Today the WAWWD movement is popular in schools. The “Darwen Aldridge Community Academy” in Lancashire, in the northwest of England, for example, is particularly active in this respect. Two senior students, Becki Airsworth and Sarah Varey, often visit primary schools in order to promote “WAWWD” ideas among small children. Becki Ainsworth explains:
BECKI AINSWORTH
(Standard British/ Lancashire accent):
It’s just a movement going around primary schools that basically tries to inspire younger people to take an active part in the world that they live and pushes them to try and change things that we think are unchangeable, like global warming, things like that, like with the CO2 emissions, you can change that just by walking to school, instead of getting the car or the bus. Things like that. Simple things.
Sarah Varey has some more examples:
An action is a small activity that anybody can do. It can be anything from turning the tap off when you brush your teeth, or not using plastic bags, and it’s a way that you can contribute to a social change.
And the basic idea behind “WAWWD” is that if everyone takes a small step, then it really can make a difference:
SARAH Varey:
I think when you see advertisements about people starving or not having water, I think it sometimes can overfaze a child and scare them, in a way, so they don’t do anything to help, but we’re presenting it to them in small ways that they can actually do something so it feels manageable for them and it’s fun as well.
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS (NO AUDIO)
(Ideas to make the world a better place, taken form Change The World For a fiver and Teach Your Granny To Text and Other Ways To Change The World)
Don’t sing in the shower. The average shower takes seven minutes and uses 35 litres of water, when all you really need is two minutes. So just get clean, get out, and save your singing for the rain.
Give lots of compliments. They are free, get easier as you do them regularly, make you feel good and everyone loves to get them.
Write a letter. You can’t re-read a phone message or put a text message on the wall – and who ever heard of a love email! But also, “teach your granny how to text”: she’ll love to be in touch with you.
Make a will and make sure your bits and pieces go to the popel you really want them to go to. There have been some wonderful ways people got back at other from beyond the grave.
Take time out to listen to someone. Don’t make any comments or try to solve their problems, just listen.
Some think that old people ‘just don’t understand’, and that young people have ‘nothing interesting to say’, but WAWWD disagrees. They would suggest you spend time with someone from a different generation; talk to old people because ‘they know cool stuff you don’t, and talk to young people because, funnily enough…’they also know cool stuff you don’t.
