Tayler

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Something amazing happened in Washington DC on Saturday. After just 5 weeks of organising, Parkland students led a march of over 850,000 people calling for a change in gun laws after 17 of their fellow students and teachers had been shot and killed on campus.

They raised $3.5m from 42,000 people through a GoFundMe campaign for the march, and another $2m was given by celebrities. They used the press interest around the shooting to speak out and call for change. They’re also targeting the November elections to support those calling for gun law reform and vote out those who don’t.

It’s time – long overdue – that we give our teens a voice. A vote. A say in their futures.

The students eloquently summed up Saturday’s march in The Guardian:

“We Parkland students have a platform never seen before. We plan to utilize this voice, because it is our own, and because it is our right. We will use it to advocate for legislation that will not only stop the mass shootings, but also the gun violence in cities like Baltimore, Chicago, and DC.

The movement to end gun violence has been active for a long time, and there’s always a breaking point – a moment which changes everything. I hope Saturday will prove to be one of those moments. I believe it can be it. This is just the beginning of the galvanization of a movement that will transform the culture of America, hopefully into a nation where gun violence is not normal, and not OK.

On Monday, I will be back in Parkland. I will continue to go to class and sports games, continue to write for my paper. But I will also continue to fight, and so will others.

We are articulate. We have opinions. We demand change. And we are not going anywhere.” 

Rebecca Schneid, the co-editor in chief of the Eagle Eye, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s newspaper in Parkland, Florida, writing in The Guardian.

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Brighton5 T-shirt designsOn 8 March we celebrated International Women’s Day – which marks one year since the idea for Brighton5 came about! – by inviting our teens to create slogans and T-shirt designs for our project.

It was an amazing and productive evening with T-shirts that we all want to wear! A huge thank you to our teens.

The best bit? The lovely Emma Knight sporting one of our teens’ designs (ace work Chloe!). Emma requested the Lady Bumps T as she’s going through treatment for breast cancer, so we printed one up for her. Big love to you Emma. ❤

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Josie Booth interviewing Brighton5 founder Daisy Cresswell on Radio Reverb
Josie Booth, host of The Mothership, interviewing Brighton5 founder Daisy Cresswell on Radio Reverb

Yesterday we did our first press for Brighton5 – a live interview on local Brighton station Radio Reverb as part of their fundraising Reverbathon 2018. (Big thanks to The Mothership’s Josie Booth for the invite!)

Daisy spoke about where the idea for Brighton5 came from and what it’s all about – we’re hoping to share a link to the interview later this week.

Dipping our toes into publicity is both exciting and daunting – now we have to get on with making Brighton5 happen! It also means we’re putting a call out for people to get involved – from subscribing to this blog (there’s a link below), spreading the word by following us on social media (we’re on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook) and sharing our posts, or offering help with the parent radio show/podcast or the TV show.

Let’s help our teens to make a brighter future for us all.