GISS student leadership team applications

To be a part of the amazing GISS student leadership team, a student needs to prove that they are dedicated to the conference, to saving the world and to making a change for the better. This is why we give out application forms to those who, like us, are passionate about making a difference in the world for its betterment. Around 30 students applied for the 24 spots available.

To promote the event, I wrote an article for the link:

Do you want to be a part of the coolest, the most amazing student conference in Africa?

I thought so.

Well here’s your chance: this year, ISK’s GIN (Global Issues Network) group is hosting the annual Global Issues Service Summit, (GISS for short), a student conference that addresses today and tomorrow’s social and environmental problems.

It is a three-day conference: two days of interactive student and expert workshops along with world-renowned keynote speakers, with the third day being a service day: the GISS students all go out on a day-long trip to some of Nairobi’s local environmental and community-oriented organisations to help out with projects and have a good time.

This GISS’s theme is ‘Amani: One World, One Harmony’, which means peace and unity in Kiswahili.

This conference will change your take on how you can make things different in the world today.

Starting next week, signup sheets will be posted around the campus, so if you do want to join, pick one up and fill it out.

We hope that we’ll see you joining our Student Leadership team!

The point of doing this was really to encourage students and their parents to come and participate in this event, and I think that it must have worked. Writing promoting articles at this stage of the conference process is good practice, as I am aware of the impending increase in work and demand, and the need for sponsors, volunteers and chaperones.

We have now finalised our list of students on this team, and though there is a majority of seniors, there is a fair share of students from the other grades too.

Back to Track & Field

Today, I went back to full track and field training, as I had been missing some of the training sessions due to football. Coming back was a little bit sad for me, as I had hoped to be part of the ISSEA team this year. However, as that had not happened, I went back to the sport that I know for sure I am good at: running.
Going back to running full time is really good for me, as it gives me the opportunity to ficus on bettering myself and reinforcing my relationships within our huge team.
Hopefully I'll be back to speed very soon, as I feel that clashing training sessions might have diminished my ability to perform well in both sports. Thanks to this experience, short as it may have been, I now know that I need to pace myself so that I may do well in whatever sport I want to do. Focusing on a single sport instead of two is a good plan, and I hope that I may persevere and become a great runner.
(I am still training at home for football, as my hopes to compete have not diminished just quite yet.)

Football (or Soccer)

Football tryouts were scheduled to start one monday morning (August 20th), but due to the Eid national holiday, it was reported to wednesday morning (August 22nd). What was supposed to be a three-session turned into a 3 week period, ending on monday september 3rd. This was a great experience for all of the girls trying out, as it made us into a real team that could trust and work with one another.

The strong team building skills I received during this period of time are key for my future participation in sports teams, and it helps today, as it makes me more confident and assertive.

Unfortunately, I was cut from the team due to my involvement with the track and field team: the coaches could not be certain, if the occasion should arise, whether I would choose football, or whether I would choose track; and they couldn't take that chance. I understand this very well, as commitment to a team is very important, even though I was more than ready to only do one sport and stay in football. I believe that disappointments are key while growing up, and without them, we would never be able to grow up to be mature and 'weathered' people. So I will try again next semester for tryouts, because giving up won't do anything good for me. Perseverance is something we all need to learn, and I think that I am learning it right now: I will keep on practicing, whether it be at home or at school, to better myself for the next football tryouts.

Shangilia Orientation Day

I have been a participator and the leader of this GIN trip for 2 years now, but this year, things have changed: it has been assimilated into the school-wide Wednesday trip group, and is now open to middle schoolers. This is a great idea, but the problem was that none in GIN knew about this change, and high schoolers who had been dedicated members of this trip were now being denied places.
The Shangilia orientation day was last week, on the 29th of August. On that day, we met up in a group in the Art centre to discuss our plans, goals and classes. We divided up our group accordingly, and after a while, we played energizers to bond as a team. I must say that I was displeased with some new members of this trip, who were not taking ti seriously, and looked like they had no wish to be there.

However, this problem has been resolved: after talking to our GIN teachers, our CAS co-ordinator and our high school principal, we said that we would let the middle schoolers stay on the trip, but that all high schoolers had to be dedicated to attending the trip, and so we managed to get our old, dedicated members back on the trip.

Today was our first real Shangilia visit, and it was wonderful seeing the kids' faces light up when they saw new people and their old friends, too. It was like a huge family reunion!
I know now that if you know that something isn't right, or is unfair, and it needs to be changed, then it can be changed. All you have to do is change it yourself, because no one else will do it for you, as you may be the only one who knows that something is wrong. And everything turns out well in the end.

First Human Resources meeting

The Human Resources committee of the GISS conference 4 sub-committees:

-the expert panel committee, which deals with researching, contacting and securing "motivational and informative" expert panel participants.
our six panels are: Amani- peace and reconciliation, Grassroots solutions, Art & social justice, HIV/AIDS, Conservation and Water.
-the student workshop committee, which organises the visiting schools' student workshops
-the sustainability teams committee, which organises the multiple student teams that facilitate dialogue and discussion, and that foster networking between students from different countries and schools.
-the Golden Hearts Scholarship program, which tends to the 17 students coming from local, non-international schools.

Being the student leader of this committee is a fresh experience for me: playing such a major role in the conference is so daunting, because I am aware that if our committee does something wrong, then there is the possibility that our mistake affects the whole conference negatively. On the positive side, however, we are in charge of the people attending and participating in the conference, which puts us into a very high position of power: we decide what goes, what doesn't, with our two main teachers, Mrs Lavender and Mrs Houriez.

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.

*

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.