Early Years students at Wiltshire College & University Centre have taken part in an annual charity appeal in the lead up to the festive season, helping to spread a little positivity to disadvantaged children around the world.
Students
are participating in Operation Christmas Child, which is organised by
Samaritan’s Purse every winter.
The project
sees donors fill an empty shoe box full of gifts, toys, school supplies, hygiene items and other fun items
before covering them in Christmas wrapping paper. Organisers of the project
then collect and deliver the shoebox gifts to children in need around the
world.
Students
studying the BA (Hons) Early Childhood Studies programme completed their
shoeboxes at the College’s Trowbridge campus this week, with the parcels ready
to be sent out to their recipients.
Becky
Ovenden, Programme Lead for the College’s Early Years degree-level programme,
explained that participating in the project is helping to grow students’
understanding of childhood issues from a global perspective.
“Operation
Christmas Child is a fantastic project to be involved with and helps provide
some of the world’s most in-need children with something to enjoy at Christmas
time. The students all enjoyed taking part and we look forward to our gifts
being delivered,” said Becky.
“For our
students, the appeal is a part of a wider project aimed at exploring and better
understanding the issues that face children and young people in different parts
of the world – many of which are hugely different to those faced by children in
the UK.
“Many of
the children who will receive these gifts are at the most vulnerable stages of
their lives and it is important for our students to fully understand that a
young person’s development process can differ from one part of the world to the
next.”
Operation
Christmas Child began in the UK in 1990 after businessman Dave Cooke and his
wife Jill sought to do something in response to the plight of Romanian orphans
at the end of the Cold War, deciding on the shoebox gift idea as a form of
easily transportable ‘Christmas stocking’.
The project
became affiliated with Samaritan’s Purse in 1993 and more than 178 million
shoeboxes have been distributed around the world to children in need since its
inception.
The College
offers a variety of Early Years courses ranging from post-16 to degree-level at
its Chippenham, Salisbury and Trowbridge campuses. For more information, click here.
