Human Rights Café ESC Autumn Term 2021

click the blue icons to Find out what we have been up to at the hrc autumn term 2021!

Making Cookie Cutter Bird Feeders To be cosy, crafty, wintry AND helpful to the local wildlife at the same time? That was indeed possible with our event to make small bird feeders. We drank hot chocolate, ate cake and got creative for the birds. This would be a great event to do next term as well as there are a lot of ingredients left over.

Social Media Learn more about us on our Instagram, our Facebook and our Blog!

Poetry Club Students got the chance to become inspired and express themselves in this poetry workshop.

Let's Talk About Peace We wanted the HRC to be a place where we could start conversations about important topics, one such example of this was the event 'Let's Talk About Peace' where we used some questions as conversation starters to think about what peace means to us as students at IPC.

Creative events The students had the chance to show their creative side and try new things at the HRC. For example we did clay sculpting and painting, and biscuit decorating with biscuits that we baked... see below!

Movie & Video Games Nights We had several movie nights and also a video game night where we played Mario Kart and Jackpot Games. The movie nights were a good opportunity to have discussions about serious issues, such as after the movie below we had a conversation about disability.

Mid-Term Reflection Evening In the middle of the term, we gathered all the students in the Big Hall with cookies, mattresses, blankets and fairy lights. We showed a short video recap of the first half of the term before giving conversation starters to students to reflect on how their time at IPC had been so far and what they still wanted to achieve from the rest of the term.

Weekly Meditation Sessions! Our weekly sessions of relaxation and meditation led by Thélia gave us moments of tranquility, calm and reflection in the otherwise busy IPC life.

Language Café We held the language café roughly once per month and it was a really cute moment to eat cake, talk about language learning and of course share our languages with others.

Speed Dating Night! One of the most fun and best attended events this term was a speed dating night where we got to know on a very deep level in a very short space of time, many people from our term! If anything we wish we'd done this activity earlier in the term to break down barriers between people from the start but regardless it was a fantastic event.

Meet the Volunteers! Here is a video introduction from the volunteers Nazarena and Thélia.

Open Mic Nights We had a couple of open mic nights during the term, here's a short clip to give you an idea of our talented students and volunteers.

Redecorating the Human Rights Café Due to a bad leak and there not being volunteers in the last term, we had a lot of work to do at the start to not just recreate the HRC but also add our own flair to the room. We added plenty of blankets, rugs and beautiful art which set the cosy backdrop to our events this term. See the before and after pics below!

Murder Mystery Nights We had two murder mystery nights at the HRC this semester, both full of secrecy and drama. If you want to host your own murder mystery event, you can find some on the site Playing With Murder, or contact me (Nazarena) for more.

Going Abroad Workshop This workshop about opportunities to travel, work and volunteer abroad, was really popular among these students who clearly have a passion for the international. You can find the slides used in the presentation here.

Games Nights We had many games nights throughout the term, they were almost every week. We always had a lot of fun, especially when playing games which had a deeper meaning such as when we played Cards Against Climate Change during COP26. Also, creating a game about climate justice was Nazarena's personal project, so you can see a photo of us play testing it and also the finished product.

Baking Vegan Cakes! We did so much baking for all of our events this term. The students knew they were guaranteed to have fun and to eat good cake whenever they came to the HRC. Here's a glimpse of some of our many creations, and find below the recipes to all our favourite cakes. The best vegan chocolate cake - I made this so many times and it's always a winner. Vegan syrup cake - this recipe says it will only work with golden syrup. Well, I used normal syrup, and it turned out great. Corn flake tart - super easy and yummy, something different than just a normal cake, this is breakfast for dessert. Vegan applesauce cake - I found vanilla cakes in general a lot harder to make vegan than chocolate cakes. But this is a decent recipe and you can mix it with a chocolate cake batter to get a vegan marble cake as in the photo above. Vegan apple tart - I really enjoyed baking with fruits because it makes me feel less guilty about the general unhealthiness of cakes!! Some other great fruit cakes that I made despite not being able to find the recipes now were upside down pineapple cake, upside down plum cake, blueberry crisp and carrot cake. Vegan cinnamon swirl cake - for a slightly Danish theme. This cake actually turned out way better than I thought it would. The cake itself was not so sweet but the addition of the cinnamon sugar swirled through made it sooo good.

Gorilla and Peanut Game We created a game for some IPC students where they were a 'gorilla' and they had to look after their 'peanut' for a week by secretly doing nice things for them. The most creative and generous gorilla got a prize. They left fruit in their peanut's unit, they created a treasure hunt for their peanut, they wrote anonymous letters and many more lovely things. This was a cute moment for the students to do some random acts of kindness for their peers.