On a rainy afternoon at Gallions primary school, in East London, there’s a stand-off between two nine-year-olds. The subject is deadly serious: is it better to give money or toys to charity? Worried that money might go to waste, Nisha Akhtar makes the case for getting your mum to donate old clothes and toys to charity. “It’s safer than giving money,” she says, colouring in a picture of a charity shop.

Ryan Edwin’s not having any of it. “Toys and clothes are no good,” he says. “People grow up and don’t want them any more.” He thinks everyone should give money, £2 every month, even if it means sacrificing your pocket money.

The cause of such solemn debate is a national competition set up by the social change group We Are What We Do (WAWWD). It’s called Small Actions; Big Change. It asks every child and young person in the country under 18 what simple action they would ask a million people to do to change the world. As one of a hundred schools involved in the pilot project – preparing the ground for next week’s launch – the class in front of me have already come up with dozens of ideas. Stop spitting, ride a bike, and get rid of graffiti have all been discussed, but the favourite, after a democratic voting process, is “give to charity”. Erikas Ptakauskas, 10, explains why. “There are lots of poor people everywhere, even in my home country,” he says, as he puts the final touches to his picture of an aircraft raining £2 coins on an unhappy-looking Lithuanian man.

That some of these actions might cross over with those already made famous by the book Change the World for a Fiver (Short Books, £5) –brought out by WAWWD three years ago – is not important. What matters is that young people engage with the world around them and offer ideas about what they would like to change. If the success of previous projects is anything to go by, the competition will capture imaginations across the country.

Change the World for a Fiver was an instant hit. A witty and stylishly presented collection of ideas that inspired people to use their everyday actions to change the world, its suggestions ranged from sharing a bath, baking gingerbread as a gift, to spending time with someone from a different generation. Within 100 days of publication, the book had shifted 100,000 copies. It was 2004’s perfect Christmas present. It is still selling, as relevant to 15-year-olds as 50-year-olds.

Last year, a sequel followed, Change the World 9 to 5, which focused on office-based actions. The two books have sold a million copies worldwide, and have been published in a dozen countries. Both were launched at breakfasts hosted by Gordon Brown, who is also on-side with the schools project.

To top it off, WAWWD was behind this year’s runaway ethical success story: the £5 Anya Hindmarch “I’m Not a Plastic Bag”. Seized on by the fashion industry, coveted by celebrities and turned into this summer’s must-have accessory, the hype led to questions about whether style had overshadowed ethics. This prompted WAWWD to launch a follow-up campaign, Plastic Ain’t My Bag, with retailers sticking a logo in their window to confirm that they are asking customers if they really need a bag.

What’s the campaign all about?

Despite all this, it is hard to pin down exactly what WAWWD is. Its co-founders Eugenie Harvey and David Robinson refer to it as a movement that aims to make social engagement relevant today. “We are not specific about causes of problems, it could be the environment, it could be social exclusion or bad manners; it’s more about getting people involved with shaping the society around them,” Harvey tells me. She believes that people are not resistant to sharing concerns and interest, it’s just that they don’t want to do it in the same way that their parents or grandparents did. “No one wants to turn up at 7pm every Thursday for a community meeting,” she says. “Social engagement has to move with the times.” For giving what is essentially do-gooding a makeover, she passes credit to Robinson, a charity worker and founder of the inner-city charity Community Links, calling him the movement’s “visionary”. But it’s obvious that her PR background has played a part, contributing an eye for slick marketing and design.

The competition requests that submissions include material to illustrate the action. “It could be a photo, a drawing or a short film; we’re looking for something original and creative,” says Harvey. The creative element is designed to get young people engaging with the idea they’ve chosen. “If a child does a drawing of their mum and dad turning the tap off while they clean their teeth, they will be thinking about it for all that time,” says Harvey. “It has more impact than simply writing the words.” The winning entry will be the centrepiece of a campaign next year. Those that make the shortlist will be turned into a book, or a poster or calendar. And to answer concerns about sustainability, school resources, such as lesson plans that can be used for years to come, will be launched next year. Harvey says the idea was to hand over to children the brand and the enthusiasm that has built up around it, to do what they will. But this wasn’t how the project started life.

The original proposition from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, which is partly funding the competition, was for a version of Change the World for a Fiver suitable for use in classrooms; in other words, minus the naughty stick men getting up to hanky panky on the “share a bath” page, plus some educational additions Its budget would allow one copy to be given to every school in the country.

It was the easy option, but Harvey says she didn’t like the idea of children having a book plonked in front of them. “I respond badly to someone wagging a finger at me and saying this is what you have to do. We wanted it to be a two-way thing.” Instead of adapting old material to take into schools, it was decided that new ideas would be requested from schools, to reflect the concerns of children, as well as how the world has moved on since the publication of the book.

One of the challenges is making sure that the competition appeals to the full age range. If it’s one thing enthusing primary school children about their role in changing the world, it’s another getting teenagers on board. So far, feed-back from the pilot secondary schools has been positive. Charlotte Berry, the assistant head at the Billericay School in Essex, was surprised at how little trouble she had drumming up enthusiasm among a class of 14 and 15-year-olds. “I asked if it was something they would be interested in doing and they came up with ideas immediately,” she says.

Ben Walsh, 14, is working on an image of a knife, asking that people hand them in to reduce knife crime. Wesley Cullinane, also 14, has decided that teenagers don’t spend enough time with their parents. “Spend the day with your mum” is his action.

Generating ideas is the easy bit

Back at Gallions primary school, a group of seven-year-olds has come up with an idea that reflects the ethnically diverse mix in their class-room. “Make a new friend from a different country” is the action, which they are illustrating with a collage that makes up a map of the world. They’re keen to explain why. “You can learn about their religion and their language,” Kizzi, one of the class, tells me. “You can eat new food,” Bailey chips in. That these children are well versed in difficult subjects such as racism, immigration and poverty is in part thanks to the efforts of the dynamic head teacher, Paul Jackson. His ethos and the school’s emphasis on learning through creativity makes it easy to weave WAWWD values into lessons. Does he think other schools will take to the competition? “The only problem I can predict is teachers not having enough time to cover it,” he says.

Harvey is already finding ways to mitigate this, encouraging out-of-school applications, but she recognises that recruiting passionate teachers willing to take the time to oversee extra work is tough. At least generating ideas from pupils will be easy. From what I’ve seen, We Are What We Do should prepare to be inundated – book No 3 is surely in the bag. Eco-worrier returns next week

THE FIRST STEP: HOW TO ENTER THE COMPETITION

Now’s your chance to join up: just go to www.smallactionsBIGCHANGE.org.uk. As well as step-by-step instructions on how to enter, you will find examples of actions, resources for teachers and youth workers, and advice for parents.

Applicants will be asked to do two things: to enter the action, a short and punchy sentence, along with a 50-word explanation of why it’s important; and to upload a photo that illustrates it. It could be of people doing the action, of a drawing outlining the impact the action will have, or another relevant image. The idea is that entries to the competition will be sent in electronically, not by post.

timesonline.co.uk/wearewhatwedo Body&Soul readers over the age of 18 can log on to suggest some simple actions to change the world – and to find out more about the competition

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