Celebrating Europe Day at USP College!
- EPAS at USP College
- May 9
- 6 min read
Updated: May 23
Happy Europe Day! As we come together today to commemorate unity and peace across the continent of Europe, let's look back at what the EPAS team at USP College have done to celebrate the occasion.
Europe Day is an annual holiday observed on the 5th of May and the 9th of May to mark the signing of the Schuman Declaration on the 9th of May 1950 and the founding of the Council of Europe on the 5th of May 1949. The day commemorates unity and peace across the continent of Europe in the aftermath of the two world wars and amidst continued conflict across the world today, such as the war in Ukraine.
Here at USP College, our team of European Parliament Junior Ambassadors have been hard at work organising different projects, activities and events to celebrate the week of Europe Day:
Q&A with former junior ambassador and political candidate Ri Goodyear
Our celebrations kicked off on Tuesday, 6th of May, with a very special guest coming into college for a Q&A session with our current junior ambassadors!
Jayden O'Brien, our Lead Junior Ambassador for USP College, joined the EPAS programme in 2022 alongside friend Ri Goodyear. Over the next two years, Ri was an integral member of the EPAS team at USP College before her departure for university in 2024.
For Europe Day 2023, she won a competitive contest of junior ambassadors across the UK to become the keynote speaker at that year's Europe Day celebrations in Westminster, speaking in a packed hall of over 400 MPs, ministers, lords, councillors, diplomats and former MEPs. Her speech focussed on European unity and identity:
There's much more that unites us, rather than divides us. We have the same goals and values. British values are European values and vice versa. Everyone hopes to see democracy, lawfulness, tolerance and liberty in their countries, and we can only achieve these on the scale that we hope to if we work together.
Through this experience with EPAS, Ri was able to unlock many opportunities which she would have otherwise been unable to experience. She made many important connections in the diplomatic and political world and found herself embarking on a political career with the Green Party. Reflecting on this, Ri praised EPAS for the opportunities it gave her, which felt very significant to her as someone from a working class background, a group who are typically ignored or left behind in modern society.
Since leaving USP College, Ri has become a leading figure in the Green Party. In the 2024 local elections, she stood as the Green candidate for the Thurrock ward of West Thurrock and South Stifford, one of the first Greens to contest an election in the Thurrock area. While she didn't win in this Labour safe ward, she did win a formidable 10.5% of the vote, which is very high for a political newcomer from a new party which has little to no local presence.
A few days ago, Ri stood in Thurrock once again in the 2025 local elections, this time in the ward of Ockendon where there was a by-election. It was in this context that Jayden thought to invite Ri back into college for a Q&A with current ambassadors to discuss her political career and her experiences with EPAS.
Ri's Q&A covered a series of topics, including house building, immigration, Brexit, Green political strategy, cross-party cooperation, transgender rights, the electoral system, the Green leadership election, university tuition fees and several other issues. Ri was at our Palmer's Campus, but the Q&A was done cross-campus using USP College's state-of-the-art immersive room technology!
The session had very high engagement with our junior ambassadors and was enjoyed by all!
Film screenings
On Tuesday, 6th of May, and Wednesday, 7th of May, our junior ambassadors organised cross-campus film screenings in the immersive rooms. Thanks to USP College's new membership of the European Film Club, we were able to screen several innovative European films free-of-charge.
In addition to the films, European songs like the Ukrainian dark-techno song Shum were also screened.
Europe Day cultural face painting event
In Palmer's, junior ambassadors set up a cultural face painting stand, where they painted European flags onto customers for a £1 fee. All proceeds from the event then went to charitable causes.
The stand also included informative posters and leaflets about Europe Day and European countries, as well as advertismental posters about our other projects and events for Europe Day.
Don't Be Trashy! Bin There, Done That climate campaign
Over in Seevic, Deputy Lead Junior Ambassador Sebastian Rapley Mende worked on a climate action campaign with junior ambassadors Ashdon Cassdon, Jessica Obi, Freya Wiggins and Crystal Holyome. The campaign was done in cooperation with the Southend City Youth Council, where Sebastian serves as the Environment Officer.
The campaign, called Don't Be Trashy: Bin There, Done That, raised awareness about the damaging effects of littering on the environment and called on students to recycle. Ashdon designed a series of posters for the campaign which were put up around Seevic Campus, two of which are shown above.
The junior ambassadors also co-authored a PowerPoint presentation which was shown to all students in their tutorial sessions.
In addition to this, Sebastian authored a survey on Earth Day for students and staff. The survey had 15 questions, 10 from the European Investment Bank and 5 relating to the college. The results of the survey will be used to develop USP College's new sustainability strategy.
Sebastian also authored an article about the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, which can be seen here.
VE Day celebrations
Junior ambassadors at both Palmer's and Seevic also helped organise special celebrations to mark Victory in Europe (VE) Day, which took place on the 8th of May. VE Day is an annual
holiday held to mark the surrender of Nazi Germany in the Second World War and to commemorate all the fallen soldiers who sacrificed their lives for their country fighting fascism.
At Seevic, a street party was held with a live student military band, a presentation about VE Day and the Second World War, special guests from the local community, quizzes, Churchill speeches, contemporary food and music from the 1940s and more.
At street party was also held at Palmer's. Union Jack bunting was put up around the college. Junior ambassadors also collaborated with the Old Palmerian's Association and the Thurrock
Local History Society to display rare artifacts from the era, including wartime photographs, diaries and more. A documentary about the Second World War was also shown, while a large picnic was held in the front field.
Trip to Westminster and Europe House
To close our celebrations, six junior ambassadors from Palmer's and Seevic went on a trip to Westminster and Europe House in Central London with Lead Senior Ambassador Darren Cogavin to attend the annual Europe Day celebrations hosted by the European Parliament in the UK. They joined other junior ambassadors from different ambassador schools from across the UK.
The day began with the annual VE Day commemorations in Westminster, which were held on the same day. Junior ambassadors paid their respects to the fallen of the Second World War. Three of our ambassadors were also lucky enough to meet the Prince and Princess of Wales, the heir to the throne Prince William and his wife Princess Kate.
Afterwards, our ambassadors arrived at Europe House where they participated in a Q&A session with Marsha de Cordova, the Labour MP for Battersea and the Second Church Estates Commissioner, with other junior ambassadors from across the country.
Lead Junior Ambassador Jayden O'Brien and Deputy Lead Junior Ambassador for Seevic Sebastian Rapley Mende also showcased the official website for the EPAS programme at USP College that Jayden developed earlier this year. Jayden gave his advice to other ambassadors on creating their own EPAS websites for their schools.
Afterwards, EPAS UK Head National Organiser Asher Jacobsberg organised a fun activity for ambassadors where they had to vote for their chosen desert, rabbit dropping cookies, cockroach slushie or ham and fish ice cream! Yuck!
The ambassadors then went on a tour of Europe House and watched recorded videos from ambassadors from each participating school about how they see democracy and what it means to them. They closed the day discussing what they saw as the most important issues for democracy today, such as the war in Ukraine, a democratic deficit, corruption, inequality and media bias among others.
Before parting ways, the ambassadors posed for the annual Europe Day EPAS group photo on the steps of Smith Square Hall.
And with that, this year's Europe Day celebrations come to a close! However, that isn't the end of the EPAS team's activities this year, for our junior ambassadors at Palmer's and Seevic are already hard at work organising more projects, events and activities for the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more!
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