Students at Somersfield Academy have been tinkering with robots, raising awareness about charities and advocating for good habits as part of a community project to encourage young people to care.

Service and action are key components of the school’s mission which is dedicated to “inspiring socially conscious, independent thinkers”.

The projects, based on the students’ interests, are completed in teams of three with a defined goal to meet a specific need. Students worked on them from January until the end of May and their work culminated in the M3 Community Project Showcase last month.

Jason Hammer, project leader, said: “The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.”

Gabrielle Reid, 14, joined Neena Fagundo and Cali Lindo in a project called A Girl’s Guide to Awesomeness. Their creative project aimed to “create an environment where girls can express themselves through art, creative writing and dance in order to create empowerment” within their school.

Gabrielle, who was team leader, told The Royal Gazette: “We all had something we felt strongly about — for Cali it was art, for Neena it was dance and for me it was creative writing. We decided to use our talents to create something for girls so we had three workshops each for our interests. It was to give them a way to express themselves.

“At age 11 to 15, girls are trying to find out who they are and in the media it says you have to have a certain skin colour to be beautiful: you have to be thin, you have to be tall. Even though these guidelines are unrealistic, girls are starving themselves and are getting depressed because they can’t fit the double standards that are set for them. We set these workshops to combat that.”

The team also invited the former executive director at the Women’s Resource Centre, Patrice Frith Hayward, to speak about female empowerment.

“We got feedback from the students and it was very good. Some people said we gave them something to help with their depression. We helped to lift their spirits and get some lost confidence back.”

The workshops were so popular that they are hoping to make them a regular after-school activity.

Another group project called Bermy Bots Robotics, made up of Kairo Morton, Bobby Cooper and Enoch Richardson, aimed to create and implement a VEX IQ robotics programme for West Pembroke Primary School to improve Stem (science, technology, engineering and math) awareness and learning in the wider community.

The group raised funds to buy the equipment, robots and software to have a fully functioning robotics after-school programme.

Kairo, 12, who led the team said: “We just wanted to bridge the gap between public and private schools in terms of Stem. So we decided to implement our programme and also wrote a proposal to the Government of Bermuda asking for more Stem education in the public school system. This will introduce them to what I was introduced to when I moved from a public to a private school. I wanted to give them the opportunities that we get here at Somersfield.”

The students at West Pembroke learnt skills in coding, engineering and physics as part of the programme.

“This will allow them to excel at many jobs in our world today that are very important such as software developer and network systems analyst and also the problem-solving skills they learn will allow them to succeed in any job they choose to go in to,” Kairo added.

“For me it was about giving back. I gained many skills such as learning how to talk to big people in the community.

“I gained experience in writing sponsorship proposals to raise money for the programme, talking to adults in general about things we needed permission for, lots of communication skills and teaching skills also.

“I enjoyed it very much. I think I enjoyed teaching the children most and seeing how our teaching impacted them and how well they picked it up.

“The children loved it. We talked to some of them afterwards and they said it allowed them to learn many different things. They loved our challenges and loved working with the robots. They sort of wanted to take them home for themselves, but we have to use them for our summer camp.”