Above: Pupils visiting 10 Downing Street.

Campaign! Make an Impact is an innovative project in which children and young people change their lives through engagement with museum and library collections. First, pupils 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, they 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.

Between September 2006 and June 2007 pupils from Winifred Holtby School studied the abolition of the slave trade by looking at collections from the British Library, Harewood House and Hull Museums. They were given a taste of the 1807 parliamentary debate to abolish the slave trade through a re-enactment in the Hull Guildhall. The museum and school worked with journalist filmmakers, Café Society. Lack of out-of-school facilities and racism were subjects which interested the pupils. Campaigns were drawn up, slogans and t-shirts made and five powerful campaigning films created. The project instantly attracted attention and the pupils found themselves on the BBC 1 Politics Show. Two girls also represented the museum and school at a Downing Street reception to promote the inclusion of slavery within the National Curriculum, and met the Prime Minister.

"It's the opportunity for people to aspire to do greater things and what's more aspiring to greater things than talking about William Wilberforce and how he moved Countries... I certainly think it gives them a greater awareness of what actually goes on in the world, not only a number of years ago, but actually in this day and age...."

                Mr Liddle, Headmaster, Winifred Holtby School Technology College, Hull

"I enjoyed it all. It was very inspiring for me and I think I have learnt more than I would have sat in a classroom."

                 Courtney aged 13, Winifred Holtby School Technology College, Hull.

For further information about the Campaign! Make an Impact project 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.