As the first day of our Enrichment Week draws to a close we hear from one of our students with her reflections on the day.
This Monday was one of inspiration, education and activism at Habs. ‘The Time is Now’ conference attended by 700 members of staff and students throughout the Senior and Junior school included talks by respected speakers in their field including ‘Activism’ by Tobias Garnett, ‘Systematic Racism’ by Prof. Iyiola Solanke and ‘Gender and Diversity’ by June Angelides amongst many others. All the sessions provided detailed insights into key humanitarian issues of today and a continuous theme spreading throughout the day was that of the importance of us, as young people and capable individuals, to be active in challenging and working against these issues in our society.
We were also very lucky to have Tiwa Adebayo, an old Habs girl, deliver a very powerful talk on ‘Activism’. Her insights gave new perspectives into defining activism, and methods of going about being an activist.
Attending a talk on ‘Medicine and Ethics’ in the afternoon, by Dr. Priyanka Joshi, I was very interested in the practical applications of ethics and morality in medicine and scientific research. She touched on the importance of integrity, responsibility and conscientiousness in conducting clinical practise as well as research. Topical ethical issues surrounding Covid-19, Alzheimer’s and gene editing were thought-provoking and opened up the value of understanding ethics in all walks of life. It also tied in the links of health inequality which feed back to the issues of racism, discrimination and inequality discussed in earlier talks.
The day overall, challenged us all to reconsider many socio-political issues and encouraged us to further educate ourselves to become more well-rounded, knowledgeable and compassionate people. We were extremely privileged to hear from such a wide variety of interesting speakers on so many crucial issues and I certainly feel it inspired me to not only continue to become more aware of these issues, but actively address them and do what I can to improve the society around me.
Rachel (Lower 6)
