Isabella, 12, delivers speech on kindness in front of Mr Speaker
By Jill Dando News
Wonderful Isabella, 12, delivered a speech on kindness in Westminster in front of Mr Speaker and MPs in their school’s Jill Dando News project
Isabella and other Jill Dando Journalists at Priory Community School Academy have wowed their latest patron Mr Speaker inside Parliament’s state rooms.
The students travelled from their school - close to the former childhood home of Jill Dando - to be hosted by Mr Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle in Westminster.
Kira, Grace, Amy, Sam, Evie, Jaiden, Tamsen, Mark, Amelia and Mia enjoyed a day of celebrations of the good news project.
After being hosted in the state room of Parliament they were interviewed by BBC national television teams outside Westminster.
During a reception, Isabella gave a speech on Jill Dando and her positive legacy in front of Mr Speaker, scores of Jill Dando News reporters and other special guests.
Isabella told a packed State Room about how Jill Dando News reporters follow in the footsteps of Jill with kindness.
For the past few years Priory has had a groundbreaking character programme nurturing positivity, kindness and a whole host of wonderful attributes in their students.
Isabella said: “Jill was a kind person with everyone she met. Our Jill Dando Journalists practise kindness in all our story gathering, writing and Posting.
This is the expanding legacy of Jill Dando.”
The seeds of Jill Dando News started at Priory in 2011 and has now gone across Somerset and into Malawi, Africa via Priory English teacher Sarah O’ Gorman.
At the event 6 other Jill Dando Journalists made speeches about Jill and her positivity, enthusiasm, authenticity, humility, kindness, empathy, and ambition to become the 'smiling face of Britain'.
Mr Speaker, Weston-super-Mare MP John Penrose and MP Alex Davies-Jones also made speeches. Lord Jeffrey Archer helped to sponsor the event.
Jill was 37 when she was killed on her doorstep on 26th April 1999 - but her legacy continues to shine brightly through the training of hundreds of young journalists.
The timely Jill Dando News was launched in 2017 after Priory students sowed the seeds of positive good news stories.
Expanding ever since, it now benefits hundreds of children aged 7 to 18 in spreading good, ethical news across Somerset and as far reaching as Africa, a continent Jill had a big heart for.
Now Mr Speaker has become the latest patron of the project as more and more people remember the incredible life and expanding legacy of Jill.
Mr Speaker said: “I loved meeting the Jill Dando News reporters - their project of spreading positivity, good news and kindness is a vital message for our times.
“I can still remember the utter shock we felt when that terrible news broke 25 years ago. However, even death could not extinguish that flame of positivity and kindness that the children are shining so brightly in memory of Jill.
“She is living on - through their positive stories and brilliant kindness and character - one story at a time.
“ So, I want to say A BIG THANK YOU to every single one of the hundreds of Jill Dando News journalists who have been through this fabulous project in Jill’s memory, since 2017.
“They have done the memory - and legacy - of Jill Dando proud and are instilling a culture of character, kindness, positivity, resilience, respect, and honesty in this generation - and future generations. So, a massive well done to you all.”
Wearing ‘Jill Dando News’ jackets and armed with pens and iPads, the children interview people from prime ministers to NASA astronauts.
It trains up real-life journalists and brilliant people of the future to find, write and post positive good news stories, with training by professional journalists including Nigel Dando, Fiona Bruce and others from BBC, ITV and Sky News.
Their positive stories are posted to the Good News Post online newspaperwww.goodnewspost.co.uk, and then to the wider Media.
The fast-expanding project has been backed by two Prime Ministers, Mr Speaker, Sir Richard Branson, Sir Cliff Richard and a host of other world figures in a world of bad news and rocketing mental health issues.
