How students have transformed lives for pupils at a city primary school

DMU is celebrating our amazing students who have transformed lives through DMU Square Mile. Today it’s Malgorzata Persa, who’s set up a Tae Kwon Do club at Slater Primary School and who won Student Project of the Year at the DMU Square Mile Awards

Pupils at Slater Primary School can have fun and learn a new martial arts skill thanks to dedicated students at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU).

Twice a week DMU students head to Slater to run an after-school club teaching Tae Kwon Do to the youngsters. The club, which is free, is led by third-year Architecture student Malgorzata Persa.

Since setting up, the club has gone from strength to strength. It has about 50 members and is now called Slater Jaguars.

Now Malgorzata, known as Gosai, has been named the winner of Student Project of the Year award at this year’s DMU Square Mile Awards.

She said: “For me, I feel like it’s good to see how the children progress and how they have fun. We go there and we given them extra classes I feel excited about it whenever we come the students are there waiting and excited to start.

“The best moment for me was when we got them Jaguars T-shirts because they had no uniforms.  They couldn’t believe we had done that. We told them ‘you’re part of a team, you’re part of our team’. I’ll remember their smiles forever.”

David Hollis, operations manager at the Square Mile, said the project was just one of several initiatives run at Slater with DMU. He said: “The Slater Jaguars has given these children a new club, something they  love, and our students got them their own kit for them. It’s an amazing achievement.”


Highly Commended: Ruby Haran (above) for Dirty Electronics, which saw students make musical instruments out of anything from old cans to can openers. They toured schools and were praised for an “unbelievably cool activity” by teachers.


Highly Commended: Eleanor Woulfe for Transitions Magazine, a new publication produced by English students who spent time meeting, interviewing and chatting with elderly people in a care home