News
HRH leads a Seeing is Believing visit to a school in Southwark
28th January 2010
The Prince of Wales led a bus full of business leaders to a school in South London today so that they could see first-hand how they can make a difference in deprived communities.
The Prince is President of Business in the Community and created the Seeing is Believing programme in 1990 to enable corporate leaders to see how they can put their skills to use to help others.
Seeing is Believing encourages corporate bosses to leave their desks and get into the community, spending time in inner city schools, homeless hostels, prisons and housing estates.
Today The Prince visited Surrey Square Junior School, in Southwark, South East London with business leaders from firms such as coffee giant Starbucks and power firm EDF Energy.
After being greeted by excited parents and students as they arrived, The Prince and delegates were met by inspirational head teacher Liz Robinson who showed the guests around the school gardens created by business volunteers for the ‘Food for Life’ programme.
The Prince was guided around the garden by nine-year-old Tolu Akimola-Adesila and her green-fingered schoolmate Dylan Clancy, 10.
"Not much at the moment," The Prince said as he perused the wintery vegetable patch, adding: "Has anybody grown any Brussels sprouts?".
Speaking afterwards, Tolu expressed a desire to become gardener-in-chief at the royal residences.
"I would grow all sort of things. Fruit, vegetables, all sort of things," she said when asked her views on what should be done with the Buckingham Palace grounds.
Having inspected the vegetable patch, The Prince was then taken to the main hall for a performance of songs from the gathered youngsters.
A Ghanaian tune Senwa De Dende gave way to Labi Siffre's anti-Apartheid anthem Something Inside So Strong before closing with the school song.
The pupils sung with gusto as The Prince looked on from the front of the hall, his foot tapping in time with the beat, before unveiling a plaque to commemorate the visit.
The delegates then separated into three groups to experience first-hand some of the solutions which business have developed to address the challenge of education and to hear how businesses are working with schools.
The Prince then joined an interactive discussion about how businesses can best work with schools - this discussion included staff from PricewaterhouseCoopers who have been working with the Surrey Square Junior School.
The Prince then met parents and children of the Family Literacy Programme, a scheme that has had success in improving reading and writing as well as encouraging parents to become further involved with the school, and heard moving stories of aspiration and achievement against the odds.
Shortly after chatting to The Prince, Zeenat Sultana, a parent of former students who helps out in the programme, was buzzing from the experience.
"It was like a dream. I never thought I would even see him, let alone talk to him," the 42-year-old mother of two said.
The visit to the school was followed by a working session at St. James’s Palace, London.
Business leaders who have led and attended Seeing is Believing visits in 2009, reported back to The Prince the impact that the programme is having on some of the most pressing social issues in the UK’s most deprived inner city and rural areas.