Four girls from Loughborough High School have recently been awarded first prize in the School Competition for Show Racism the Red Card initiative in the clothing design category, beating around 25,000 other entries from across the UK.

Ella, Zini, Deeya, and Anika, all in Year 8, were invited to a special awards ceremony at Anfield football stadium at which they were presented with their award by former footballer and anti-racism campaigner John Barnes.

The girls started their design during their PSHCE (Personal, Social, Health, Citizenship Education) lessons during which they worked together as a team to come up with a design that would show how, despite differences, everybody is equal.

The girls explained: “We brainstormed a number of different ideas, and decided we wanted to show the word HUMAN down the middle using different colours. This was to represent that although we all have a number of different skin tones, we are all human. We then thought of adding on the rainbow to represent LGBTQ+ groups, again to show that we are all equal.”

“We hope that when seeing this t-shirt, people will understand the message and be encouraged to stand up to racism and help to make a difference.”

Following the ceremony, the girls were then told that in recognition of the impact of their T shirt design, it was going to be launched as a strip in the FIFA football computer game later this year. As a bonus prize, the four High School girls will receive a free copy of the computer game once their digital design has launched.

The girls’ PSHCE teacher, Victoria Standring explains how they all got involved: “We were covering the topic of racism in class and learning about how to be upstanders, rather than bystanders, and this competition caught my eye. It was a great way for the girls to work together in teams on such an important topic. I’m so proud of them winning this award, it’s such a wonderful achievement!”