AFTERAN article in The TES Scotland last year on the plight of children in Kosovo, our charities committee decided to collect items of stationery for schools destroyed in the war. House points were awarded on a scale devised by senior pupils - one point for a pencil, two for a pen etc.
The school also had a tidy-out of cupboards, and departments were asked to hand in any items which they were no longer using but could be of use to another school. From this we got boxes of chalk, reams of old paper, donations of jotters and lot of old computers and printers which were out of date. We also had a large blackboard that proved too big for a van sent from Manchester to collect everything.
Before Christmas war broke out again in Kosovo and all visas were stopped by the Serbian Government. The aid agency uplifted our articles just before Easter, fortunately, since the storage room here is used in April and May for SCE exams. Obviously delivery cannot be made to Kosovo until the war is over. We are now collecting money for the current crisis aid appeal.
Margaret Conway Kilsyth Academy