New team member for eWaste Project

As our performance event approaches, we’re expanding the team behind the eWaste Project to include a new Marketing Intern. We’re delighted to introduce Claudia Shaw to you all and to welcome her onto our team.

We asked her to share a little about herself, and tell us why she’s so inspired to tell others about global environmental issues

A warm welcome from me – Claudia Shaw – SÓN’s new marketing intern! With the recent Australian bush-fires storming the media in a frenzy, the emphasis on needing to take more care for our environment has proved ever more necessary. However, in a modern world, constantly evolving technologically, this encompasses a lot more than just recycling plastic. In the phrase ‘reduce, re-use, recycle’, we forget about the former and primarily focus on ‘recycle’. This in itself is good, but in recycling are we really active in helping the environment? Or do we pop our waste in the blue bins, letting it be collected on a Wednesday, in a kind of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude? The focus with #eWaste is to encompass all three – reduce flippant electronic consumption, reuse components that are still functional and recycle those which aren’t or not of use any more – it really is that simple!

In my third year at the University of Southampton studying English and History, I have a passion for writing, the arts and the environment. Along with many students my age, I am conscious in reducing my own carbon footprint with food that I buy and eat (flex-itarian, if you will) with trying to cut down on animal produce. Similarly, Stacey Dooley’s investigation on the fashion industry’s secrets or entrepreneur Grace Beverley pushing for attention to the harms of fast fashion on the environment, has re-shaped my own interests in fashion and sustainability. e-Waste is also a topic swept under the carpet as with more technological developments, pressure to keep up to date with the newest iPhone – even though yours is perfectly fine! – appears to be a social MUST like food and water. My aim is to keep updates on the project that attempts to voice and tackle these issues.

I am ready to take on my new internship role for SÓN and am excited at what their eWaste project has to offer. An exciting project with an electric 80 children singing, it is certainly a break from the mundane posters or advertisements that make concerns about the environment and waste like a chore, out of our control or just pretty fluttering colours whilst minds gawking at the television sets question whether they have time to make a cuppa or not. The project is a refreshing resonance. A visit to the school earlier this week to get a grasp for the songs and children involved in this project was exuberant – I was overwhelmingly impressed. The children’s energy for Monster Electric and Dead Computer are techno triumphs!

The flickering flame that burns within me was ignited with when I read about this project. Watching Alicia Keys’ opening performance at the Grammys this week, she is correct in claiming art and music are universal languages that speak to everyone. Therefore, song in this SÓN Project is a perfect medium to project issues of eWaste and the environment with the voices, arguably, most important: the children of the future.