Brixton primary school stands up for Refugee children

On Friday 21 ^st October, the entire school of St John’s Angell Town Primary School gathered with Local MP Helen Hayes in Windrush Square, Brixton to mark black history month and show solidarity with child refugees.

The students walked from the school to Windrush Square with and performed their own ‘refugees welcome’ chants to celebrate the arrival to the UK of refugee children from Calais, a campaign that St John’s Angell Town Primary School had been part of with Lambeth Citizens, the local branch of Citizens UK.

MP Helen Hayes said

“It was a huge pleasure to join the pupils from local primary school St John’s Angell Town at the end of their Refugee Walk recently. St John’s children have shown huge compassion in their commitment to refugees. They have been campaigning for the UK government to welcome more refugees for the past year and I am proud of their work. The commitment of campaigners has been vitally important in persuading the government to do more and I’m pleased that some children are now being brought to the UK. However, there are still hundreds of unaccompanied children in Calais and the government must act more quickly to protect more vulnerable children.”

The students also heard from Bekele Woyecha, a refugees welcome organiser from Citizens UK who spoke about his experience of being a refugee from Ethiopia in the UK and spoke about the more than 100 child refugees that came to the UK from Calais last week.

Chair of Govenors Rev Rosemarie Mallett said

“The motto of St. John’s School is learning to make the world a better place. Events such as this demonstrate how the children are also learning to love their neighbours as themselves, and work for justice for children in other parts of the world.”