Greengates School and its support of charities in Mexico
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Greengates School is committed to playing an active role in social support and involving its students of all ages in this area. Students from the Infant and Junior School all the way up to Senior School are presented with many opportunities to raise money or goods that go to support many community initiatives or disaster relief operatives. Other opportunities are presented in the form of volunteering in different programmes some of which are mentioned below. In the Six Form this involvement is an integral part of the I.B. Creativity, Action and Service programme but for the rest of the school it is simply about raising awareness and developing a social conscience. Furthermore, it is about teaching our children that no matter how small their contribution may seem, it is in fact an important contribution which has a positive impact on the lives of others less fortunate than ourselves. We would like to think that these values remain with our students for many years after they finish their education in this school. |
Greengates School helps Hurricane Stan Victims!
Over the course of several weeks, students and
their families brought in non perishable goods, blankets, clothes to
send to some areas affected by Hurricane Stan. The organization
contacted for this purpose was PVO Mexico A.C. (Organización Profesional
para Asistencia Social). They collected on three separate
occasions truck fulls of boxes and packages which they then transported
and distributed on behalf of the school. The following scanned
images have been taken from the report they sent the school about the
collection.
Please click on the link for more information.
Tsunami Relief Effort in Thailand
Greengates School staff and families donated approximately $5000 USD to
the Tsunami Relief effort in Thailand coordinated by the New
International School of Thailand. They organized a programme to
build a new school and library in South Thailand and to send down a
bilingual teacher to administrate the fund. You can see
photographs of the school and library being inaugurated by one of the
Thai princesses at the NISD website. Please
click on this link to see the photographs!
Annual Social Support Activities:
SPECIAL OLYMPICS| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY| PORVENIR| AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL| MISCELLANEOUS
This programme has been running in Greengates for the past ten years. Each year we set up groups to train young people from the community under the auspices of Special Olympics Mexico. This organization aims to give young people with different capacities a chance to participate in sport. In our school the main activity is swimming but we shall also be doing basketball and hockey this year.
The scheme is run as follows: the students sign up for a sport and also for organizing social events. A committee is formed from the students involved and although there are always two members of staff on the premises, the students organize the rotas, events, tournaments, etc.. The athletes come on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons from 3.00 to 4.10. Each year there are about 30 students involved and 6 members of staff. We cater for about 30 athletes. Many of our athletes come from very low income families and the majority of them have never been in a swimming pool before they come to the school.
This programme is especially rewarding as we see a lot of improvement in our athletes and our students learn a lot from these young people and their families. Sometimes our students have the opportunity to accompany the athletes to events at local, state and national events. Indeed, in February, one of our athletes, accompanied by one of our students, is going to Japan to represent Special Olympics, State of Mexico.. This is obviously a long term, on-going project which incorporates all three CAS areas.
Habitat for Humanity
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This is a scheme which is very popular with the students. Each year more students join and this year we have had to make a rota system. We have been participating in this scheme for the past 7 years and work in conjunction with the Mexican branch of this international organization which helps low-income families build decent housing. Our students provide some of the labour under the guidance of Habitat’s engineer and they are also, in some cases, involved with the planning. The activity takes place on a Saturday from 8.00 until 15.00. The students phone to check on where they will be working and the school provides a bus to take them and return them to school. The students round up the tools required for the job that day and they are accompanied by a member of staff and sometimes parents get involved. Many of the students have taken first aid courses to deal with any eventuality. This scheme provides our students with the opportunity to see what a struggle many people have to achieve a dignified place to live. They learn to work alongside the local community and to share the satisfaction of seeing tangible results and celebrating the communal achievement. This is an activity that is on-going and also incorporates all three CAS areas.
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This is a new project which involves “adopting” a community and helping to ameliorate child malnutrition. Every two months we collect the ingredients for “papilla” and take it to the community in Omitlan, Hidalgo. The students weigh and measure the infants to evaluate their need for help and record the results on the Porvenir website. Up to now we have made three visits to the community and have seen good results. We have also taken toothbrushes and blankets for the Mums and infants involved in the scheme and are in contact with the local authority in order to keep up with other needs. The students enjoy this activity which fulfills the cas criteria.
This organization aims to bring to light injustice in the area of human rights and one of our teachers, Angela Riviere, has a once-a-week one- hour session in which the students discuss human rights problems in various parts of the world. They write letters to different governments on specific cases and take part in the on-going campaigns that Amnesty International runs. They also aim to raise the general consciousness in the school on these issues, For example, at Christmas we had a campaign to send greeting cards to prisoners of conscience around the world in which the students were encouraged to buy a card and stamp and choose a particular person to mail it to. The students involved in the project were able to persuade 400 students and teachers to participate.
We have tried to maintain a group of Amnesty in the school for several years but this is the first year that it has been so successful thanks to the enthusiasm of Angela and her group.
Hopefully we shall continue to develop this very worthwhile activity. It includes creativity and service.
Other organisations and activities
The above-mentioned activities are the main ones in which our students are involved, but, as our school has 45 different nationalities and they live in many different areas of Mexico City, students also find activities in their communities. Some of our Japanese and Korean students find work in orphanages, old people’s homes, etc. in their own countries during their holidays. The students are also involved in disaster relief collections and the” Comparte Tu Navidad” Christmas collections.
We work on and off all year with two organizations, Casa de la Sal, which runs a house for H.I.V+ children and Centro Colibri, which is a day centre for indigenous families who live in vacant lots and work on the streets.
For the former, the students do a course on Aids Awareness where they train to be communicators in our school and outside, organize a sponsored rope jump with our Junior 5 children and visit the house with gifts at Christmas.
For the latter, some students help out at the centre but as it is in Col. Roma this doesn’t happen as often as we would like. Every Christmas the children from the centre write Santa Claus cards and our students buy the gift they ask for, within reason! From these cards, the students then maintain a relationship in the form of birthday presents and we hope, this year, to organize some events in the school with these children.
A group of students worked in the primary school with the UNICEF “Trick or Treat” event which takes place every year in order to raise funds for schools for indigenous children. The students organized talks with the younger children to discuss the problems that indigenous children face and then helped make collection boxes. The children received certificates for their help written out by the students. Although this is a once a year event it had two benefits. First of all the CAS students learnt a lot about organization and co-ordination and also they spread the idea of community awareness further down the school.
This year we initiated a new project in the primary school, Un Kilo de Ayuda, the children enjoyed collecting the cards and receipts and moving the magnetic marker on their classroom game boards. We raised more than a kilometre of help, i.e. more than 1000 cards collected, a great result.