Surrey students campaign at Glastonbury

Students at a Surrey school are raising awareness for Climate Justice to hundreds of thousands of festival goers at Glastonbury.

The students from Merstham Park School created a banner, which will be displayed at the iconic music festival when it kicks off tomorrow (June 21) and runs to Monday 26 June.

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Entitled ‘The Price We Pay’, the hessian panel measures three-and-half metres by two metres, and depicts the problem of fast fashion and the detrimental effect it has on the environment.

While a core group of seven worked on the project, a further 14 Merstham Park students from Years 7 to 10 contributed to the mixed-media work, which was created as part of an Oxfam GB Campaigns initiative that involved 25 schools and colleges from across the country.

“Their theme for Glastonbury was climate justice this year,” said Haley Scholz, Humanities Teacher and Head of Year 9 at the school. “The students took some time back in April to learn about climate justice and come up with their design that would express the knowledge they gained.

“The final design they came up with was ‘The Price We Pay’, tying into our humanities unit of fast fashion and the impacts the global fashion industry has on the earth.

“The pupils wanted to show how we as a society need to be conscious of where our clothes come from and how it could negatively impact the most vulnerable countries in the world.

“They expressed this by showing two sides of industry, having the bright colours of consumer goods, and the pollution monsters terrorising a vulnerable person in a land suffering from drought.”

The design was created using stencils, spray paint, embroidery thread and acrylic pens, with the students working on the piece almost daily after school from receipt of the banner in late April until it was sent to Glastonbury earlier this month.

Their banner will join campaign art from the other 24 participating schools and colleges and be displayed in the festival’s ‘inter-stage’ zones, where it can make the maximum impact on the 220,000 people attending the event.

“Glastonbury has always worked very closely with Oxfam, so it was through the Oxfam Schools Speak Out Club that we were given this opportunity,” continued Miss Schulz, who runs the club at Merstham Park, a member of the GLF Schools Multi-Academy Trust.

“Through Oxfam Schools Speak Out, we have been given many opportunities to take part in some really cool projects.

“Last October, we, along with many other Oxfam-associated schools, sent postcards to Egypt for COP27, demanding climate justice. This gave students at Merstham Park vital background for the banner we just completed.

“We have also done a research project on Education in Emergencies in conjunction with Oxfam and the national campaign group Send My Friend to School.”