Making A Difference

We don't really post about work, but I thought I'd make a little exception to put up a few things I have been working on this term. When I took on my role for this year I was most interested in the CAS/IB aspect of it, but I have really "got into" the charity work. I like making real links for charities and trying to find ways of helping them and showing our students how they can help.

At the start of Term 3 we had a clothes drive (very American I know!). Scotty and I went to donate all of the boys and adult clothes to The Recycling School. A few weeks after that visit I arranged for the young children from an orphanage we have been working with the last few years to come and visit us for a play date. At the end of the visit we donated to them all of the toys and girls clothes we recieved.

A new link that has been set up is with a school on the outskirts of Cairo in a very poor area. The school is for the children of the workers at a military factory and the school is located, along with run down concrete housing blocks, withint the military factory compound. Money raised at the end of Term 2 went towards re-paving their outside yards (which was previously a dust bowl) and money raised this term has been going towards finishing the outside area. I then spent two days with a group of 20 CAS students painting murals on the walls of the yard.

On the first day of painting this girl (who goes to the school) walked by with a huge smile on her face. We invitied her back the next day to help with the painting.

The finished mural along the main wall. Housing overlooks the school-yard.

The finished "free" mural that divides the main yard and football area from the basketball court area.

An idea that was taking its time to come together and final is happening is selling charity t-shirts. We held a competition to design a t-shirt that in some way fitted the theme of working together to make Egypt better. Two boys came up with the idea of a design showing people cleaning the streets and painting them (which is what all the young people in Egypt have been doing). The Head of Art and good friend, Lucy, then translated these ideas into a final design. My original idea was to sell to Secondary students for a marked up price with all profits going to charity, but then I managed to get Primary involved too. They sold 15 times as many t-shirts as we did which meant that we made a really decent amount of money for the military factory school project. Nothing runs smoothly of course which meant I spent about a week getting letters sent out and then another week tallying orders. Things are never plain sailing and although "all" the t-shirts arrived by the deadline it seems that this wasn't actually "all" the t-shirts. A day then spent trying to work out what did and didn't arrive, but at the end of the day nearly everyone has their t-shirt and the orders keep pouring in for the great design.

And a final idea that got off the ground in the closing weeks of term was to ask for donations towards Ramadan boxes. Money will go towards buying boxes of food that will be given to the families of the children who go to the military factory school. This is a tradition during ramadan to give donations and the boxes will include rice, oil, beans, sugar, apricots and lots of other ramadan staples. The idea that our students came up with was to also include some school supplies in each box - so that the children are ready for school after Eid.

I'm really pleased with what we have managed to achieve considering all the disruption and difficult nature of school at the moment. It has been hard work and stressful, but I think it has been worthwhile for us, and really worthwhile for the help we have given to the groups we are working with.