Family sparks Sakira's remarkable idea

With family as her inspiration Year 9 Marsden student Sakira Knights has created something really remarkable for her ‘Remarkable Time’ project and we'd like to share it with you. Sakira has instigated a ‘Lightbulb Trade Relay’, to raise funds to help find a cure for Parkinson’s Disease. This is dear to her heart with her Grandmother having been diagnosed with this illness very recently.

Using a bartering system (inspired by Kyle McDonald’s ‘One red paper clip for a house’) Sakira has decided to see how far a lightbulb can get her. So far she has gone from the lightbulb to her most recent trades of a private 6-person helicopter charter over the Remarkables ($990), traded for a Peregrine Wine Voucher ($1200), which she then traded for accommodation at Crowne Plaza Auckland ($2,150). Follow Sakira's relay on her Facebook page.

WATT's Glowing

Alongside this Trade Relay Project, Sakira (and her younger sister Mahalee Y6) are running another project called "WATT's Glowing". The idea behind this is to create a lightbulb with spare coins (see image above) which will be donated to the Research facilities they are supporting. Sakira is hoping schools, businesses and community groups can join the cause and help raise money and awareness for Parkinson's Research through conducting their own "WATT's Glowing" campaign. She hopes to see "WATT's Glowing" Lightbulbs across New Zealand and Australia. 

The research centres Sakira is supporting are the Brain Bank in Auckland and Shake It Up Foundation, Australia. Shake It Up is a specialist Parkinson's Disease research company (in association with the Michael J Fox Foundation in the USA). 

We are proud to share Sakira’s story and hope that through the "Lightbulb Trade Relay" and the "WATT's Glowing" project the contribution she will be making towards Parkinson's Research actually makes a difference in the world and sheds some light on this dark disease.

There are a number of ways you can help! Start your own, business or family “Lightbulb Trade” (connect with Sakira and her family to start your journey and see how much you can raise!), collect spare coins yourself or at work and ‘make’ a lightbulb and then donate the money, visit and share Sakira’s Facebook page. Donations will also be able to be made through a Give a Little page soon.

Remarkable Time

We are taking the girls, and ourselves, out of our comfort zones with a new initiative ‘Remarkable Time’, a long term project individually chosen by our Year 9 students. Remarkable Time is a phrase we borrowed from high-flying international entrepreneur and Marsden Old Girl Claudia Batten, who has been generous in sharing with us her thinking about how we prepare our students for a rapidly changing and unpredictable world. For our students, their ability to be adaptable, creative – to fail, to try again and to problem solve will be crucial to their success.

Remarkable Time is a fortnightly timetabled lesson. Using class time and homework time, students have three terms to develop a personal idea into something real and tangible.  We look forward to seeing the Remarkable Time Projects at our Year 9 and 10 Curriculum Expo on 4 September. 

Sakira with staff at Parkinson's NZ

Sakira’s project is only one example of Service and Giving at Marsden. We are very proud of all our girls who embrace these virtues while they are at Marsden and beyond.