RGS Amnesty International

In 1961, British lawyer Peter Benenson was outraged when two Portuguese students were jailed just for raising a toast to freedom. He wrote an article in The Observer newspaper and launched a campaign that provoked an incredible response. Amnesty International was born and, since its inception, the organisation has worked tirelessly to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied. 

The RGS Amnesty Youth Group are an affiliated group, and our lunchtimes are spent educating pupils about human rights abuses all over the world and campaigning to stop them. Pupils are encouraged to learn about both the situations in other countries and specific cases of interest to them. This enables them to understand some of the complicated human global issues and develop a better understanding of their own sense of place and responsibility in the world. 

As well as educating our pupils about these issues and the relevance of them in their own lives, we also write letters to prisoners of conscience and government officials around the world and we organise assemblies and information for other pupils in the School. The club is currently actively involved in several campaigns as part of the annual Amnesty International ‘write for rights’ campaigns which run every year during November and December. The club is new to RGS Worcester, but the committed and ambitious group of attendees also plan to start collecting signatures more widely for campaigns they are passionate about, with the intention of delivering them to local MPs and the Government to try and accelerate change. They also plan to attend some of the national events but paramount in all of this is generally having fun and developing great friendships and confidence along the way. 

Mr Dominic Breffit

Head of Philosophy & Religion