Donna Does-a-lot

Donna does her best to contribute positively to our society. She has long arms to reach out and help anyone who might be feeling left out or who needs a little extra support. If children need help to learn English she gets it for them. She is there for anyone who gets into trouble with the law and helps redirect them to use their energy for the good of everyone. Donna gives children with special needs a lot of support and encourages everyone to do their bit to help each other. She is especially keen to help minority groups like travellers and to promote understanding between people of different religions or nationalities.

1. Say hello in as many different languages you can find – if there are children from other countries in your school make sure you can greet them – check out how to say hello in for example Polish, Cantonese, Irish.

2. Visit your library to look for folktales from different lands.

3. Make a chart to show how many places in the world have been visited by children in the class. Then look at a map of Northern Ireland and plot how many places they have visited at home.

4. Ask children to imagine they had to move countries at a day’s notice to a new place where they did not speak the language – ask them to express how they would feel. When that task has been accomplished ask them to think about how it must be for children coming here.

5. Talk about the different sorts of sports that are played by children from different schools in Northern Ireland – eg, do they know what hurling or rugby are?

6. In a cross-community setting, for example with an EMU partnership or even within the class, split the groups up into mixed pairs and get them to interview each other about hobbies, favourite sports, grandparents – the aim is to show how we are all different and yet weall have things in common as well.

7 Discuss disability and how it affects people – have the children any relatives who wear hearing aids or who use wheelchairs?

8. Discuss how it feels if someone calls you a bad name because of your religion, colour or ethnic background.