Special Aid - Paper Chains Being Made By Handicapped Pupils

Project to raise money for starving children in Africa.

At Oliver Wells Special School, Milton Keynes, pupils are cutting and gluing together strips of newspaper to create long paper chains. A pupil explains that they are being sponsored by local businesses enabling them to raise money to send food for African famine relief. Other schools are taking part, and the aim is to produce paper chains which would stretch from Land’s End to John O’Groats. The project is the idea of teacher Alan Counsell. He says that people with handicaps receive funding and this is an opportunity for them to give something back. The pupils have been looking into the situation in African countries to help them make moral judgements, and they wanted to make a contribution. A parade of pupils displays the long paper chains. The reporter was Peter Lugg for this video made to be shown in a news story on Anglia Television early evening news / magazine programme 'About Anglia'.

Keywords

Schools; Physical disabilities; Fundraising; Famine relief: Africa; Paper chains; Cerebral palsy

Additional Description

The interviewees include a pupil and a teacher with speech impediments. The teacher, Alan Counsell has cerebral palsy. There is an interview with Alan Counsell in the Wellcome Collection https://wellcomecollection.org/works/gzsqd6sf. He received a Lifetime Award from the Leonard Cheshire organisation at the Enabled Awards 2001 for helping disabled people fulfil their ambitions.