Giving Back
At Richard Lander School we celebrate giving back. Volunteering our time, resources or energy to help others doesn’t just make the world better—it also helps to boosts our own happiness, health, and sense of well-being.
We have a strong tradition of raising money for worthy causes; supporting both local charities and those in the developing world. In the run up to Christmas we collect food donations for the Truro Foodbank and since 2012, Lander4Uganda has raised over £250,000 for our partner schools in Uganda, with our students also providing much of the labour to build toilet blocks, classrooms and many other facilities.
Our students are empathetic and thoughtful. This can be seen in their support of and enthusiasm for national awareness days, for example by wearing odd socks on World Down Syndrome Day, pink for Breast Cancer Now or yellow for World Mental Health Day.
Our Debate Team and Eco Team strive to make the world a better place by raising awareness through assemblies, discussion, advocacy and direct action.
Lander4Uganda is Richard Lander School’s flagship initiative which fundraises for a better quality of life and education for the students in our Ugandan partner schools. Every summer, a team of students and staff from Richard Lander School travel to Uganda for a month to supervise the distribution of funds raised and to provide labour for building and infrastructure projects. Through this personal supervision and our long established contacts at the Ugandan schools, Lander4Uganda is able to provide donors with the security of knowing that every penny raised will benefit a Ugandan family directly.
Our relationship with the Molly and Paul Foundation began in 2009 when our Headteacher met the Pearl of Africa Children’s Choir at their performance in Truro Cathedral. He struck up friendships with founders and teachers; Molly, Paul and Annet and invited them to visit our school. The seeds of an ambitious plan were sown and following a pilot visit and a stack of risk assessments, a small group of students from St Ives School, Falmouth School, Truro College and Richard Lander School travelled to Uganda as ‘Kernow to Kamuzinda’ in Summer 2011 for work experience and to make a difference.
The experience was a huge success and the remarkable benefits to our students and their Ugandan counterparts were so evident that the senior leadership team at Richard Lander School decided that the relationship must be nurtured and that the trip to Uganda would be an annual event.
Since 2012, teams of Year 10 students and staff have been running Lander4Uganda, raising in excess of £250,000 over the years, through sponsored events, bake sales, bag packing, craft fairs, film clubs, quiz nights, school sleepovers and individual fundraising efforts. They travel to Uganda in July to distribute the funds they have raised and to provide the labour on the building and maintenance projects they sponsor.
The Lander4Uganda Uniform shop also helps to provide a steady income and our merit system allows students to donate their merits to plant trees in Uganda.
A highlight of the Autumn term is BBC Children in Need. A dedicated non-uniform day, along with other fundraisers leads to a generous donation every year. To find out about the work BBC Children in Need support locally please follow this link.
In the run up to Christmas we collect food donations for the Truro Foodbank. Many of our tutor groups choose to collect donations every day using a ‘reverse advent calendar.’
On the last day of term all students are invited to take part in a non-uniform day where they can either bring in a donation of food or donate £1 for the food bank in return for wearing their Christmas best!