St. James's is an affiliate of the United Nations Association (UNA), an organisation that exists to promote the ideals of the UN, and one of the main activities of the local Twickenham and Richmond Branch of UNA has involved working with local schools. State secondary schools are obliged to teach Citizenship from this September and UNA had successfully lobbied for the specific mention of the UN in the new curriculum.

It now sits along side membership of Europe and the Commonwealth as part of a grand concept of Global Citizenship in the new curriculum.

This term has seen Teddington School and The Mall School in Twickenham research Citizenship using the UN’s work with poverty as the topic. The local UNA Branch has been helpful in much of the preparatory work here using well-researched UNA materials. Both schools have had local M.P. Dr. Vince Cable make introductory talks and Vince is a keen supporter, having been President of the London and S.E. Region of UNA. The classes have each led up to a rather grand event, a “Model UN General Assembly”, where delegations from different countries debated their causes, just like the real thing, trying to agree on UN resolutions which will successfully tackle world poverty.

Pupils meet many of the new curriculum’s requirements including the skills of research and analysis of information, development of arguments, making ethical judgements, negotiation and persuasive speaking. The ideal of teaching children about the UN, and about global issues like poverty or peacekeeping and most importantly about how they personally might make a difference, is surely worthwhile and we therefore hope this project will run and run."

Source: Dennis Wilmot (Twickenham and Richmond UN Association), The Spire Magazine - 2002 July