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By helping others, students become tomorrow’s leaders
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With high school graduates all over the world seeking limited seats at top universities, one of the factors that sets an individual apart from the crowd is often hands-on experience.
When that experience is focused on volunteering and community service, as it often is at Yew Chung International School of Shanghai (YCIS), the benefits extend beyond academics to include the development of desirable character traits.
Opening doors to the future
Participation in community service activities can place students on a university or career path, says Kelly Flanagan, a YCIS university guidance counselor, who also leads Secondary students in an extracurricular activity of volunteering at Shanghai Healing Home.
“Students are changed by this experience,” says Flanagan, noting that the volunteer experience opportunities at YCIS often affect students so profoundly that they’ve gone on to pursue related university majors.
Flanagan notes that despite the degree paths alumni have chosen, the experiences they have had at YCIS have instilled a commitment to helping others through community services.
As 2012 graduate Celest Dines Muntaner recently shared, “My experiences at YCIS contributed to my character and the skills that I am now able to apply to my studies.”
Muntaner, now studying biomedicine at the University of Melbourne, is always mindful of opportunities to give back, noting that her graduating class has been “shaped to look for solutions to problems on a global level, because everyone must work together to make a difference.”
Character and community
By starting to learn about making a difference in the lives of others at a young age through community service-based efforts, students develop the awareness of a globally connected community.
“YCIS Shanghai strives to develop the whole child beyond academic skill sets, and community service plays a large part in this,” said Nathan Tomochko, a creativity, action and service (CAS) coordinator.
Citing the school’s Education Outside the Classroom program (EOTC), which enables student to travel on weeklong, experiential learning trips around China, students are able to connect classroom learning to service projects and cultural activities, and Tomotchko says the students feel empowered and fulfilled by their time spent helping others, with examples from the recent EOTC trips including building a fish pond for a rural village in Guizhou, and constructing a play area for a school in Hebei.
Finding how to make a difference
Through volunteer experiences, students experience helping others in a very impactful way, and they learn that they can actively participate in creating a better world.
According to Felix Sibarani, a CAS Coordinator, “being a change-maker is part of YCIS’s goal of nurturing holistic students. Volunteering challenges students to think unselfishly, recognize opportunities where their talents and resources are used to benefit others, and provides a visionary outlook that helps them realize that they can be a powerful agent of change.”
By incorporating real-world volunteer experience within the curriculum, YCIS helps students develop strong character in ways that stand out on university applications, and help students cultivate a lifelong interest in helping others through volunteerism.
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