Students from Beechen Cliff school in Bath are hosting a TEDx event on 14 October based around the theme of ‘Let’s Look Forward’, focusing on what students have to look forward to in their futures. TEDxBeechenCliffSchool is all about the futures of young people and showing that, despite Covid and everything they have all been through, their best days are ahead of them.
“A TEDx event is a local gathering where live TED-like talks and performances are shared with the community,” explained Toby Hawkins, one of the Beechen Cliff students behind the event. “TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis. The content and design of each TEDx event is unique and developed independently, but all of them have features in common.
“After more than 18 months of uncertainty, stress and anxiety caused to young people as a result of the pandemic, we are incredibly proud and excited to be launching TEDxBeechenCliffSchool 2021. We had planned to run the event in July but unfortunately had to postpone at the last minute due to a severe increase in the number of Covid cases and isolation periods across the local community.
“The recent change in Covid-19 regulations enables us to run our event with a live in-person audience of up to 100 attendees. Alongside this, we will also be running a livestream on the Beechen Cliff YouTube channel to allow us to expand our outreach with our local community. The link for our livestream is https://youtu.be/FFgrPOMY6H0. From the outset, we wanted this to be a positive community event that brings students and local people together after a really challenging year and by running the event both physically and virtually, we can welcome vastly more people to our event to celebrate everything we have to look forward to.
“With this in mind, we have recently reached out to potential VIP guests from across Beechen Cliff, Bath and the West of England to join us for the event, as well as local schools whose students are also more than welcome to attend.”
The line-up of speakers for the event will cover a wide array of topics from youth politics, to climate change, societal progress and much more besides. They include –
Sophie Sullivan A More Equal Society – The campaign for greater representation and equality in society.
Jasper Thompson Helping Bristol’s Homeless – The Help Bristol’s Homeless project of up-cycling shipping containers into secure, environmentally housing for homeless people.
Klaus Riekemann The Importance of Decisions – Being an Olympic gold-medal winning rower and the importance of decision making.
Dr Bill Wilkinson The Challenge of Climate Change– Political, societal and technological progress in the challenge against climate change.
Eddie Ilic Eddie’s Street Cuts – His hair-cutting for homeless people project and mental health.
Rupert Tobin Freedom or Success – What a successful future society will look like and its relation with freedom.
The event can be followed at Instagram (@tedxbeechencliffschool) and Twitter (@TEDxBeechen) accounts, including the chance to see the speaker releases so far and further updates to come.