Students and staff from Archbishop Holgate's Church of England Academy began their journey to South Africa on Friday.  The students took around 250 football shirts with them as part of their community work and friendship building between the Diocese' of Cape Town and York. York City FC sponsors, Benenden Health announced a charity shirt swap in 2013 following a rebrand. The football shirts are to be donated to community projects in the township of Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa. These include the charity Fikelela which works with those infected and affected by HIV/ Aids and The Warehouse which works with homeless and destitute people. The young people from Archbishop Holgate’s will also be doing community work with these groups and other ones whilst they are in Cape Town. It is hoped that some of the shirts will also be used to kit out a local township football team.

We went to catch up with them at York Railway Station. Watch the Video here

Year 9 students in the school are engaged in the Young Leaders Awards which sees them doing a school based project (during school time to benefit the school community), a personal project (completed in their own time to benefit someone they know such as a family member, neighbour or friend) and a community project which can be completed in their own time or during school time which benefits the wider community in the local area or beyond. Students have been given almost free reign to design their own projects which are ideally both high impact and realistic.

Some of the projects which have taken place include whole class litter picks of the school grounds, cake sales for the Special Care Baby Unit and the charity Children in Distress (raising over £70 combined), baking cakes to order (raising over £94 for Fikelela in South Africa), doing extra chores around the house for parents, running a Fairtrade stall during Fairtrade fortnight, helping teachers after school with display work and filing, creating welcome guides for the Year 6 students who will join us in September, raising £30 from a cake sale and using the money to purchase flowers which have been planted in the rose garden, helping to tidy the Food Technology room after practical lessons, assisting the canteen staff with clearing away after lunch service and preparing an assembly to raise awareness of the work done by the RSPCA.