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A group of sixth-formers are working to set up a new charity in London after spending a day out on the streets helping the homeless.

Kieran Dhrona, Humzah Hameed and Kabishan Sivarasan, along with a non-QE friend, planned the event in which around a dozen of their friends from QE and a further 25 from other schools, spent a Saturday handing out essential provisions to homeless people in the heart of the West End.

The group, all in Year 12, gathered packs of water, non-perishable foods, clothes and toiletries from friends and families which they then distributed to those they encountered living on the street. On the day, 85 packs were given out and the volunteers engaged with more than 100 people. In certain cases, where additional needs were observed, they took other steps, such as bringing hot food.

Headmaster Neil Enright said “I sincerely commend the boys for taking the initiative and giving up their own time to organise and participate in this charitable event. It sets a fine example to their peers whilst embodying the QE spirit of service unto others.”

Throughout the day the boys had conversations with people living on the streets from Soho through Leicester Square and Embankment down to Southwark. They gently asked the homeless people they encountered how they came to be in their current position and made sure they were aware of the work of Centrepoint. Centrepoint is a leading homelessness charity which provided a room for the volunteers to use as a base for the day.

Kieran, Humzah and Kabishan are working to set up a new charity called youthconnectionlondon which will focus on helping the homeless in the capital. “The more we grow, the more people we can help,” said Kieran. They are also exploring whether they can work further with Centrepoint, looking for a base from which they could prepare hot food.

Kieran had previous experience of similar charitable activities with his family when younger. “I was touched by it and so thought I’d use my initiative to start this project. We all live in a wealthy city and have grown up in comfort, and often don’t see how others live – yet you have wealth and poverty in such proximity. We are the future generation and it is really important that we make a contribution as early as possible to keep this vital work going.”

They are establishing a social media presence and working on a website to draw in further volunteers.

“I wish them every success as they attempt to establish this charity and help more people as they progress,” said Mr Enright.

Boys in Year 9 explored what makes relationships healthy and unhealthy in an hour-long assembly devoted to the topic of domestic abuse and sexual violence.

Led by representatives from Tender, a charity ‘acting to end abuse’, the boys learned about the huge scale of the domestic violence problem – one in three women and one in five men will be impacted by it. Tender’s Emily Whyte and Andrew Macklin highlighted some stark facts: on average, two women are killed each week in the UK by a current or former partner, and for men, the figure is about two per month. Overall, about 85% of victims of domestic violence are women.

The boys were also told that it is very much a young people’s issue – statistics show that those aged 16-24 are the demographic mostly likely to suffer domestic violence. The highly interactive assembly included a discussion about ‘sexting’ that followed the screening of a film featuring a case study, entitled #ListenToYourSelfie. The discussion covered appropriate and inappropriate communication through technology and in online relationships. It focused on matters of trust, coercion and manipulation, as well as how to stay safe, the dangers of sending explicit images and an understanding of the law in this area.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “As a School, we are committed to exploring these serious issues and to building awareness and understanding among our pupils, not least because of the prevalence of domestic violence among young people across the country, as the statistics reveal.

“There will be follow-up to these discussions in form groups as part of our Personal Development Time programme; in fact, we are increasingly using such special assemblies to support the programme and to give boys an additional insight and point them towards external sources of advice and support.”

There was discussion of the different forms that domestic violence can take, with the definition having been expanded in recent years beyond purely physical abuse to include areas such as controlling behaviour and emotional abuse. Boys were told that physical violence is usually preceded by at least two or three other expressions of domestic abuse.

The assembly included a quiz on healthy relationships and an activity in which boys were asked to arrange a list of behaviours along a line from ‘most healthy’ to ‘most unhealthy’. This stimulated discussion of various forms of behaviour which was geared towards helping boys identify what positive, respectful relationships based on equal power look like and, conversely, helping them to identify unhealthy relationships.

This debate concluded that, of the terms provided, ‘respect’ was the most important ‘healthy’ factor, followed by ‘trust’ and ‘listening’. There was mature debate around matters such as jealousy, control, secrets and cheating, with the discussion considering the moral, ethical and legal aspects of such behaviours.

The representatives from Tender finished by encouraging boys to think about who in their lives they could turn to for help and support if they had a concern or wanted a second opinion on a relationship. They also ‘signposted’ the boys to publicly available support services and – should they be needed – ways of reporting issues in this area.

QE pupil Aadi Goel’s first book is now available to buy – even though he is still only 12.

The Year 8 boy’s collection of short stories and poems is called My First Solo Journey – a title drawn from the first story which recounts the real-life trip he took on his own in the summer of 2017 to visit relatives in India (and perhaps also, metaphorically, from the fact that this is his first foray into writing a book).

Self-published on Amazon, the book comprises ten poems and ten short stories. Aadi, who wrote it in his spare time, joined the QE poetry club last year and is looking forward eagerly to getting involved with the over-subscribed creative writing club this year.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “My congratulations go to Aadi on his achievement in putting the book together: it is always good to see boys pursuing interests outside of the classroom. Creative writing is, in fact, a flourishing facet of School life at the moment, with boys benefiting from the support and advice of both our poet-in-residence, Anthony Anaxagorou (OE 1994-1999), and writer-in-residence, Caroline Green. Their frequent visits to the School to run clubs and workshops are helping to inspire more boys to try their hand at writing and develop their skills further.”

The writing in Aadi’s book is varied in both style and content, although adventure is a theme of several of the pieces.

Aadi began writing after being encouraged by his teachers at St Peter’s C of E Junior School in Farnborough, Hampshire. He enjoyed the process of writing the book, adding: “This has inspired me to write even more.”

Bilal Harry Khan is fast becoming a leading voice on issues of social justice, race and masculinity.

In recent months, Bilal has featured in a number of BBC news and current affairs programmes and has launched a successful podcast with fellow Cambridge graduates, all ‘black and mixed-race guys’, looking at life, diversity and the challenges faced after graduation.

One episode of the podcast this month featured an interview with Stormzy, following the artist’s decision to sponsor scholarships at the university for black students.

Bilal (OE 2003–2010), who works as a facilitator running diversity and inclusion training workshops with corporate clients, is due to visit the School this term to deliver a talk to Year 11 on Masculinity in Britain. He turned freelance in August: “I will be looking to develop my portfolio of work as a facilitator in the coming years.”

Earlier in the year, Bilal was a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, also speaking about masculinity.

And this month, he was interviewed by the BBC’s Global Gender & Identity Correspondent, Megha Mohan. In the article, he related the challenges of living in the UK with a name that is unfamiliar to many – including one occasion when he visited a school (not QE) and a teacher introduced him in assembly as ‘Harry’ even though he had been repeatedly emailing the teacher and signing himself off as ‘Bilal’. The teacher later told him that ‘Bilal’ would have been “difficult” for the children, although in fact many of them had come up to him after his talk and said his name perfectly.

In his parting shot in the article, Bilal made a plea: “Children in the UK should be able to grow up loving and being proud of their names. You can play a part in that by learning to pronounce them properly. It is not that hard. If you can say ‘Tchaikovsky’, you can pronounce our names.”

He was interviewed on the BBC World Service about his mixed-race heritage in the run-up to the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The royal bride had spoken of her confusion as a child when asked to describe her race and of the enduring impact of her mixed-race background during her acting career.

Bilal told presenter Nora Kim of his own experiences as a person from a mixed-race background. His father is Kenyan of South Asian heritage and his mother is Jamaican from a mixed-race (East Asian and black Caribbean) heritage.

He recalled a time when he was out with some of his QE schoolmates: “Most of my friends were Asian. Someone’s girlfriend said ‘Oh, you are the black friend.’” This conversation caused him to reflect at the time that “my identity is based on how other people perceive me”.

When used in the UK, the term ‘mixed-race’ is generally presumed to mean a combination of white and ‘something else’, he said, yet that did not describe him or many other people. “Perhaps we need to change the definition to include people like myself, like my mum,” he said.

After leaving QE, Bilal read Theology at Cambridge. While there, he met the three friends with whom he launched the Over the Bridge podcast in March this year.

Since graduating, he has worked as a youth engagement officer in Barnet and then, for more than four years, for WE, a Toronto-based non-profit organisation working globally with young people and families.

George the Poet is enlivening TV screens this autumn with appearances in both the public and private spheres.

George Mpanga (OE 2002–2009), a keen advocate of social justice, investigated how and why the capital’s poor residents are losing out as council homes disappear in the first of this month’s Inside Out London programmes on BBC1. He also stars in a new commercial reflecting on the wonder of Planet Earth and the transitory nature of human life.

The half-hour primetime BBC programme presented by George looked at the effects of the widespread loss of council homes as many London councils redevelop their estates, often forcing residents – “families like mine,” said George – to move out of their communities.

He highlighted the policies behind the problem and spoke to a number of residents affected by it. The programme included interviews with people involved in active resistance to the redevelopments, while also exploring some more community-friendly alternatives.

In his closing remarks, George concluded: “Redevelopment does not have to end this way, with former tenants displaced, neighbourhoods gentrified. Redevelopment can actually empower communities, but for that to happen, we need to ensure this beautiful city does not lock out the very people who make it what it is.”

The programme is available on the BBC iPlayer until 9th October.

In O2’s new advertising campaign, George performs a poem for a TV commercial entitled Breathe It All In which celebrates our existence and the planet we live on.

During the 90-second advertisement, George reflects on both the wonder and the transience of human life: “Life is a miracle. Out of all the planets and all the solar systems, ours was the one to support our whole existence. Ours is abundant in sustenance. Not too close or far from the Sun, just enough distance. Ours are the lungs that can make use of oxygen. Breathe it in and get high on life like an intoxicant. We’re all interconnected, everything that happens, all things that affect it. We’re born alone, but we walk into collectives and every experience falls into perspective when you see that this planet is yours to explore. See, we leave our mark and the people we affect, the memories we make when we speak and we connect, the feelings we share, the secrets we pretend, the strength and the weakness we project. Our time here is like a drop in the ocean. Ups, downs and a lot of emotion, but you’re still here to see the morning. Life’s for the taking. Breathe it all in.”

The background music in the advert is the 2015 track Loud Places by English electronic music producer Jamie xx, with vocals from Romy Madly Croft. An excerpt from another Jamie xx track, Hold Tight, features in the Inside Out London current affairs documentary.

George took up a place at King’s College, Cambridge, to read Politics, Psychology and Sociology after his A-levels. His first poetry collection, Search Party, was published in 2015. He has since gained a high profile, performing: before the Queen in Westminster Abbey on Commonwealth Day; at the opening ceremony of the Rugby World Cup, and to a worldwide television audience as part of the coverage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding earlier this year.