Cranbrook Junior School 2011
The inaugural Nepal educational trip was hugely successful for the Cranbrook Junior School community. It promoted a unique collaboration between students, parents and the school to plan and prepare one memorable and challenging journey. The experience encouraged many personal and meaningful connections between our team and the Nepali village people. It awakened a perspective filled with appreciation and respect for a culture that was distinctively different. The two schools we visited and the dental clinic that we sponsored, allowed our Year 6 students to engage in authentic community service. The trip also sat exceptionally well with our school’s and the International Baccalaureate’s Primary Years Programme’s philosophy.
Nepal was an amazing fifteen day adventure. The group was immediately immersed into a country that was rich in culture, colour and a real sense of community spirit. Life in Nepal for the Cranbrook travellers was busy, challenging and immensely energetic. It was a powerful and meaningful life-changing experience with rewarding outcomes for all. All senses were stimulated as the team strolled through two very remarkably different parts of Kathmandu: the largest Hindu region, Pashupatinath, and the Buddhist temples in the Bhaktapur region. These places presented to the team initial glimpses into a rich and complex culture. Boys observed a way of life that both challenged and enriched their views about people’s beliefs, rituals and values. These places became the stimulus that aroused the boy’s curiosity and their desire to learn more about Nepal.
The boys have returned from the trip with a very different view of the world they live in and a genuine appreciation of the Nepali culture and language. Each boy presented at the first school assembly of Term 2 and used three adjectives to highlight the significant experiences in Nepal, acknowledging and affirming their actions of sharing, giving and learning from the Nepali people.
The boys will continue to support the cause of Nepal. Using their journals begun in Nepal, they will continue to reflect on their experiences and take further action to make a difference in meaningful and appropriate ways both in and out of class environments. For example, they will become expert speakers in areas of interest and visit classrooms to share the knowledge that they have gained about Nepal. Our journey into the Rasuwa District, Nepal will continue in 2012, with new excited faces who will also strive to make difference.
Thanks to World Horizons for their invaluable support, unsurpassed organisation and management of the whole educational trip.
Christine Cellini
PYP/Curriculum Coordinator
Cranbrook Junior School
