During my first lecture of ‘Global Public Relations’, the professor mentioned that there is an opportunity to become active members of a local, relatively new charity, the Cross River Gorilla Project (CRGP); this thought stuck on my mind and I started looking into it a couple of days later. As a third year Media student I had already learned how to plan my academic workload effectively and meet my deadlines without any pressure; so, I considered that now is the ideal time to get involved in different things that would not only help me develop personally, but actually become part of something bigger.
Although I have only been part of CRGP for about two months, I consider that I have already gained a number of distinct, transferable skills – besides contributing to the overall organisational targets; communicating and discussing major decisions with other members in meetings, identifying opportunities to raise awareness and taking part in various mini-projects are just some of the things that I had the chance to get involved in so far. Nonetheless, the targets that we have achieved as a team in such a short time-period is even more astonishing, as we managed to secure the charity status title, plan on donating 1,000£ to our counterpart in Cameroon – and we are also working towards a partnership with MSF.
Nonetheless, as the festive period is kicking in, we thought of a way to support the children in Cameroon, who instead of celebrating – they are fleeing their homes to survive. For this purpose, we are running ‘The Pencil Case Project’ in order to gather pencil cases and funds to donate to the ‘needy’ Cameroonian children, who had to leave everything behind and evacuate their hometowns.
If you want to assist us and take part in our campaign, find one of the drop-off points within Newcastle University campus (can be distinguished from the children images) and donate a pencil case with any school equipment that can fit in it, along with a 3£ minimum donation.
Photo credit: Paul Spillet.
Note. Donation point now closed.