University of Westminster judges First Give social action competition

First Give is a charity that inspires and equips students to engage with and support their local community through social action for charities, while also developing essential life skills.

The charity runs a programme in secondary schools, which culminates in an inspiring event – the School Final. This is where one team per class is chosen by their classmates to creatively present about their chosen charity and the social action that they have done to support it.

Robinson was invited to judge one of these finals at Reach Free School in Hertfordshire and was part of deciding which group of students won, and in turn, which charity would win a £1,000 First Give grant.

There were four groups of 14-year-old students who presented their social impact project after working with a selected charity over a few months.

In the end, the winning team was a group of students who had worked with a charity called Supershoes who work to empower children fighting cancer by providing them with hand-painted shoes designed specifically for a particular child or young person.

Not only did the students from the winning team raise funds to support Supershoes, but they had also directly contacted the charity to learn more about their work and had even invited some of the artists to meet with other pupils within Reach Free School to further raise awareness.

Speaking about her participation on the judging panel, Dain said: “It was a pleasure to be invited as a judge for the Reach Free School’s First Give Finals.

“It was fantastic to see such inspired and passionate students who had worked tirelessly to raise funds for their chosen charity and to raise awareness within their community about the issues that they felt most passionately about.”

Find out more about the University of Westminster’s public engagement work.