NHS bake sale and first GIN meeting

Today, NHS had its first bake sale to fundraise for the Golden Heart Scholars.  The Golden Heart Scholars are 17 local high school students who have made, or are making a change in their community. As these students come from schools that are less well off than the international schools in Africa, we need to find sponsors to pay for their registration and accommodation.
Their cause is one we really should be fighting for, as the whole conference wishes to inspire and empower youth, and what better way than to find students who don't have as wide a range of opportunities as we do, and give them such an opportunity?
So the bake sale had the sole purpose of fundraising for this.

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Today was also the first GIN meeting of the year, and my first GIN meeting as the leader. It was very nerve-racking, as we needed to explain to our group that you had to pay a certain amount of money to be a part of the group this year, due to the GISS conference. Because we didn't know how anybody would react, my fellow leaders and I felt as though we had slightly botched our presentations, and this unfortunately did not make us feel too confident about ourselves.

However, others said that they thought our first time as leaders went well, and that we make a good team, so we now know not to lose heart in front of an audience when we feel as though we've done something wrong, which will be very useful for our next GIN meetings.

In a strange way, I'm glad that I made mistakes today while being a leader: that way, I know not to make them again, and I've learned from this experience. If it had been too easy, then something would have been wrong!

GISS presentation to staff and parents

Today, the student leaders of each of the Global Issues Service Summit committees were all asked to present their groups' goals in terms of scheduling, planning and simply getting things done. We also demonstrated our student GISS cheer.
The cheer itself is a great way of empowering and motivating people to get involved in our projects, and I believe that leading up to the conference in february, it will continue to motivate and inspire on a larger scale.

This meeting, or presentation, permitted us to recruit new members for our committees, as well as giving us the opportunity to have our first planning meeting this year. We recruited one student, Shea, as well as 4 (and possibly 5) teachers and parents.
This kind of presentation is great for public speaking practice, something that is required from me, as an IB student, daily. These many opportunities to speak in front of strangers, acquaintances or friends are good practice for my academic life and my CAS leadership roles.

First NHS meeting of the year

This first meeting of our final year was really amazing: we rapidly decided on what our goals and plans would be for the year, and they are as follows:

-We are going to support the GISS conference by sponsoring one or more of their Golden Hearts Scholars with fundraising events such as bake sales. This opportunity to do some good amongst Kenya's young population is really inspiring, and I know this, as not only am I student leader of the GISS committee that looks after the scholars, but I have participated and led a bi-weekly orphanage trip to Kangemi, one of Nairobi's slums, to work, play and interact with the children and students who live there.

-We are going to help Interact with their OVC trips, also with fundraising events.

-We are going to partially stop tutoring, as last year's tutoring program fell through. This is a real shame, as it brought a lot of help to struggling middle-school students who we helped. We will still be tutoring a few, but as the majority of the group is comprised of Seniors, we unfortunately do not have the time for this particular activity.

I have high hopes for our future inductees, as this year should be a good one for ISK's National Honour Society, and I am proud to be a member of this prestigious society.

Final Year

This year is my last at ISK and my last year at school full stop. Therefore, I have decided to make the most of it and do the activities that I have always wanted to do, but never have, or never had the opportunity to.

In Creativity, I am participating in

-Artsco.  —(thursday lunchtimes) L. Mackay
-Photography —(tuesday afternoons) J. Bock
-Yearbook  —(unconfirmed) L. Weeks

In Action, I am (hopefully) participating in

-ISSEA girls' football  —(tryouts)
-if not, then track and field or swimming non competitively

In Service, I am participating in

-GIN (of which I am co-leader)  —(thursday afternoons) L. Lavender and M. Houriez
-the GISS conference (of which I am also co-leader)  —(february 2013)
-NHS  —(friday lunchtimes) S. Giddings

I am hopeful that this year will start off well and end even better: over the course of my final year of the full IB diploma, I am sure that my CAS activities will enrich me with what I hope will be useful to me for the rest of my life.
I am also setting goals for myself: keep track of my time management and organisation whilst juggling academics and activities, and if I should ever falter, check myself, my routine etc. and improve myself thereon after. This year will be full of promise.

Welcome Back Picnic

The Welcome Back Picnic was a great event for all the new students to ISK, and it was also a great opportunity for us to meet them and to see our classmates and friends after the holidays.
A few of my friends and I volunteered to help guide the new high school students around our campus, show them classrooms and other facilities.
I found that this was a great experience for me, because it enabled me to re-learn our school campus with fresh eyes, and discovering it with the confusion of many new students was a truly interesting experience, as I had almost forgotten what being a new student was like.
I think that I was really able to help, because the crowding of emotions, people and new things was too much for many of these students, and I was able to help them, look after the littler ones, and talk about life here at ISK to those who are older.
We also helped new parents with their children's school supplies, and we talked to them about life at ISK too.

I believe that this experience has helped me mature in those circumstances that I need to be: talking to and helping adults, especially parents, is a challenge when you are but a student, not much more than a child, and putting us into a position of power, so to speak, is a leap of faith, as I saw that it was quite hard for certain lower grade volunteers not to smirk at being more knowledgeable than an unknown adult.
I can only hope that this will serve me well later on this year when I have to speak to teachers and students from all around Africa for the GISS conference.