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Campaign! Make an Impact is an innovative project in which children change their lives through engagement with museum and library collections. First children and young people study a historic campaign, such as the movement for the abolition of the slave trade or the struggle for votes for women. Then inspired by the past, pupils use their new skills to plan and run modern day campaigns about issues that affect them today. Results of the project have been described as "phenomenal" with pupils learning from the past to change their environments, their futures and raise their self-esteem.

For the Recycle Project a group of gifted and talented students from Eastlea School in Newham (East London) worked with visual artist Godfried Donker. After visiting the British Library and researching the abolition campaign the students recorded their own responses to the questions it raised for them. They then looked at modern day issues and developed a film-based campaign to encourage recycling in their local community. 

"Our overall aim for ‘Campaign! Make and Impact' was to demonstrate how heritage collections can underpin active citizenship initiatives and deliver real world changes in the attitudes and aspirations of young people. It has been a huge success, and most of that success is due to the creativity and commitment of the teachers, students, practitioners and museum partners who have come together to make this happen."

                            Quote: Roger Walshe, Head of Learning, The British Library (June, 2007)

For further information about Campaign! Make an Impact please select the following websites:

• www.bl.uk/campaign
• www.mylearning.org/campaign 

Additional information is also available from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) report, "Inspiration, Identity, Learning: The Value of Museums." Page 25 and throughout.
http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/Thevalueofmuseumspt1.pdf.