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St John's College, Cambridge obtained support from the Heritage Lottery Fund to run an educational project to coincide with national commemorations for the bi-centenary of the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.  It was called STACS (Slave Trade Abolition in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk) and centred on the partnership between a former graduate of St John's, Thomas Clarkson and the formerly enslaved, Olaudah Equiano. 

The project sought to celebrate this partnership of black and white abolitionists working at local, national and international level in what amounted to Britains first mass human rights campaign.  A small group of gifted and talented pupils from Key Stage 3 were selected to participate in the project by three schools in Cambridgeshire and three in Suffolk. In September 2007, with support from two drama specialists, each group of pupils spent two days off timetable preparing a multimedia performance on the partnership between Clarkson and Equiano.  These were initially presented to an audience of their peers in each school and in the majority of schools to parents the local community and local primary pupils as well. 

In the autumn term, each school prepared another presentation with the same or similar group of pupils to propose their design of a memorial to Thomas Clarkson and other abolitionists at St John's College. The schools in each county competed against each other and winning designs were selected by a panel of adult judges. 

The winners from each county presented their designs in turn to a final audience  at St. John's College. which included a panel of fellows. The Master of the College publicly committed St John's to consideration of erecting an actual monument in it's grounds. A CD-Rom of educational materials written for Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 are due to be distributed to all schools in both counties. A national dissemination conference is also scheduled for July 2008.

For further details see http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/admissions/outreach_access/stacs.

List of participating schools:
Chesterton Community College, Cottenham Village College, Holbrook High School, Hollywells High School, Impington Village College and Thurleston High School.