“In June, the JCR, amongst other students from local schools Theale Green and The Willink, were lucky enough to have Nick Winton, son of Sir Nicholas (Nicky) Winton MBE, talk to us about the power of leadership.
For those who have not had the chance to see the award-winning film One Life, starring Anthony Hopkins and Helena Bonham Carter (which I could not recommend enough), it is an incredibly moving film about the life and heroic actions of Sir Nicholas Winton, a stockbroker just before WW2 who spent time in Prague saving the lives of 669 Jewish children, transporting them to England, and subsequently saving them from the horrors of the German concentration camps. Nick, his son, spoke to us about his father’s bravery, and overall selflessness throughout his astonishing 106 years of life.
As deeply moving, emotional and genuinely informative as the talk was, what really stuck with me was the message of hope Nick left us with. After learning, only in his thirties, the extent of the incredible feat his father had undertaken, Nick spoke to us about his father’s mentality. As opposed to complaining, Nicholas Winton’s outlook on dealing with injustices he felt occurring in his life was simply to just do something about it. This was when the idea of “Active Goodness” was introduced to us. “Active Goodness”, in the sense that “doing good” does not mean passively addressing issues, but being proactive in your approach to solving them, and actively standing up for what is right. This is what has inspired the JCR in our acquisition and purpose for our roles next year, and hopefully, is a concept that will gear our minds in the right direction, and become motivation for us to make some real change.
Having spoken to Nick after the talk, and getting to see the replica of his father’s scrapbook which was used as a prop in the film One Life, it was very easy to gauge an understanding of Nick, and it was even easier to see the incredible way he has taken on his father’s legacy. His friendly personality and true motivation and passion that he has for informing new crowds on his father’s work, and introducing the concept of Active Goodness to others, came across abundantly in the time I was lucky enough to spend with him. I could not recommend him, or looking into Nick’s work, as well as his father’s, any more.”
Paula (I)
