PUPILS in Tweedbank have highlighted an issue that many of us may take for granted.
As part of Unicef’s Outright 2022 project, youngsters in Kyra Tweddle’s P6 class decided to focus on the right to access clean water, learning about waterways on their doorstep, as well as the problems facing communities globally.
And on Friday (November 18) the group set out to show their village how important clean water is with their message in a bottle display.
Ms Tweddle said: “We’ve been doing lots of work on access to healthcare and healthcare services, and following on from the pandemic.
“But what we did was take a slight left turn because when they came back from holidays some of the children said they’d been swimming in the Tweed and had become ill.
“So we turned it into more about access to clean water.”
She continued: “We’re right on the Tweed and we’ve got the loch in front of the school, it’s something that’s really relevant to us.”
As part of the project, the pupils were visited by representatives of the Tweed Foundation, a local charity which aims to help the environment in and around the Tweed catchment area.
The Outright project aims to give children and young people a voice and let them share information on issues which matter to them.
The pupils from Tweedbank Primary School were joined at Greenknowe Loch and on Galafoot Bridge by MSP Christine Grahame and councillor David Parker from Scottish Borders Council (SBC).
On their day of action, the 28 pupils displayed glass bottles they had collected which featured the message ‘clean water for everyone’.
As well as the bottles the pupils had made signs with messages such as ‘clean water is a global right’, ‘clean water=good health’, and ‘everyone has the right to clean water’.
Ms Tweddle added: “The aim is the project is to get children to see that their voices can be heard and amplified.
“My point of view is, being able to find all these different ways to amplify their voices, we’ve had such a brilliant response from our local councillors, and Christine Grahame, and a response from John Lamont [MP] too.
“And the community council have been brilliant at engaging with us and offering to have someone come and speak to us or listening to the children.
“The support has been brilliant so far.”
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