Global Citizenship

The student-led One Voice Summit took place on Friday and Saturday last week. It was a brilliant success. Its mission is to inspire young people to collaborate and bring about positive change on global issues and to challenge students to come up with solutions for their schools and communities to have a positive impact on people and our planet.

This year's event had two themes - Animal Rights and Diversity - and featured two keynote speakers. The first was Emily Penn, an activist working on issues of pollution, microplastics, ocean health, and sustainability. The other was Tonye Shuurman, an activist, journalist, writer, and entrepreneur who grew up in Apartheid-era South Africa. Each gave powerful presentations which spurred robust discussions throughout the remainder of the day.

This is the fourth One Voice Summit we have done, and owing to COVID restrictions it was once again done online.

The idea for the One Voice Summit originated with some of our Senior School students who wanted to collaborate with other students in Shanghai. They saw that in many things between schools there was competition (sports, MUN etc), but rarely unity and working together. They saw One Voice Summit as an opportunity for that.

One Voice has inspirational keynote speeches to start the day, and followed by working in small groups ("Lightbulb" sessions) that are student run in which there are a number of provocations, simulations, and stimuli to help participants engage in the summit themes and provoke them toward meaningful action.

Says Director of Global Citizenship, Mr. Anthony Reich, "It is great to work with students at other international schools, to partner and collaborate, and to meet with the aim of wanting to inspire one another. This is unique in many ways. There is no competition. It is open to any schools in Shanghai that would like to join in. And with us having moved online in the past two years we have been able to cast a wider net with students from Beijing, Suzhou and even as far away as India participating this year."

Aside from the keynotes, one of the highlights was the Marketplace activity where students from the various schools got together and shared how their school is trying to make a difference.

Says Y12 student Elena L, "This was special for me because it was a space where not only did we meet new people, but we were also inspired by everyone’s actions and listened to some ideas we could try to implement in our own school. Seeing everyone engage in these global issues and listening to what they did individually helped motivate me to strive for bigger change as well."

The organisers of One Voice hope that the event makes a lasting impact.

Says Y13 student Krish S, "I hope that this event provides challenging perspectives to people. I believe that discussion and debate is essential to forming and developing a polished idea that can be effectively implemented in the real world. Secondly, I hope that it allows for and builds connections between students throughout schools and communities. This is the first step to an especially important goal: collaboration. Collaboration ensures a higher level of both commitment and continuity of the results of the conference. Ultimately, I hope that One Voice inspires action that helps the world, however large or small the action may be."

The One Voice Summit could not have happened without support from Senior School GC Coordinators Chantelle Smith and Clare Dorans.

Give Peace a Chance

On Friday 7 May, over 350 members of our Dulwich Pudong community turned out at the Ramada Hotel Jinqiao for the annual Quiz Night supporting the Peace Centre Uganda (TPC) - an overwhelmingly positive community response!

The Peace Centre Uganda, founded in 2015, provides love, care, a home and education for Ugandan orphans and currently supports 60 children. TPC is a long-time community partner of Dulwich Pudong, with students from our school first travelling out to the village back in 2014 to help build the children’s home. Traditionally DCSPD students would travel to the TPC every summer to volunteer. Although this tradition has been temporarily curtailed by COVID realities, we continue to support TPC through the annual Quiz Night. Find out more about TPC right here.

On the night, quiz participants viewed an inspiring video of greetings from TPC children and staff. We also heard a moving personal story from Andy Clapperton, a Trustee of TPC and ex-Dulwich member of staff, who along with other members of Dulwich staff at the time, was instrumental in founding TPC. The event featured a silent auction of donated prizes as well as student art works. In total over 120,000RMB was raised, 100% of which go to support TPC children.

We are very proud that Quiz Night was a student-led event. A group of Senior School students and some staff dedicated their time in organising the logistics, staffing the vendor booths, and running the quiz round tabulation. The questions were also created by students.

Says Anthony Reich, DCSPD Director of Global Citizenship, "This is one of my favourite events of the school year. We have students, parents and teachers all coming together under one roof for a night of community togetherness. There is always such a buzzing atmosphere, and we have so much fun, but it is fun with a purpose and real meaning and impact behind it. The money raised goes on to have such a huge impact at TPC. It is a very special event.”

Ultimately the top prize went to the "Old Alumnae" team composed of recent DCSPD graduates, proof once again that a Dulwich education gets you to the top!

The Year 2 children at DUCKS have been busy over the last term making a difference to our planet!

We had a wonderful e-visit from the author of ‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley’, Sarah Roberts, where we listened to the journey of a plastic bag in the ocean who gets swallowed by different ocean creatures. The children were shocked by the effect plastic is having on our planet and oceans. They decided they wanted to find out more and try to tackle this problem.

After some comprehensive research, the children found that since the outbreak of Covid19, there has been increased pollution to our land and seas in the form of single use masks. We collected some data to find out how many masks the Year 2 children and teachers wasted in just one day. Then, using our amazing calculation skills, we worked out how many were wasted each week, month, and year. The numbers were dreadful- It was time to do something!

Across Year 2, we wrote over 120 letters informing people of our findings which we hoped would help persuade people to think twice about what happens to their masks. In order to drastically reduce the waste made from masks alone, we had to be clear and concise in our efforts.

The children decided who and where they wanted to send the letters to. The letters reached all DUCKS classrooms, as well as many classes in Junior and Senior school. They were also sent to several different schools in Shanghai, Hong Kong and even the Prime Minister of Australia!

Across DUCKS we have already seen a dramatic increase in the use of reusable masks. We hope to get some responses soon and we are so proud of what the Year 2 children have achieved.

The Refugee Response Team report on their determination to overcome the challenges created by Covid-19 in a service context  

Despite the numerous disruptions created by COVID-19, we were determined to continue our work; we were incredibly fortunate to be part of a fundraising opportunity at the Winter Choral Concert in the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, attended by our wider Dulwich community. At the Winter Choral Concert, we aimed to promote altruism during the holiday period by a selling myriad of products for our different partnering charities, including an organization called Choose Love.   

Choose Love is an aid organization that provides life-saving and essential items around the world to refugees in need. All of the funds raised the night of the performance were donated straight to purchasing products for refugees. Products included education kits, hot meals, clothes, blankets, and baby clothes. We were delighted with the level of generosity showed by our community.   

On the night of the performance, the Refugee Response CCA raised enough to purchase 7 education kits, 5 blankets, 4 sets of baby clothes, and 5 hot meals. We would like to thank the Dulwich Community once again for their generous donations. To find out more about the gifts you have given and to explore further opportunities to help refugees at this time, please visit https://choose.love.   

Even when numerous projects around the world have come to a standstill, we have continued to explore more possibilities and virtual opportunities to further support refugees. For instance, we have recently completed ethical training and worked as translators for refugees with Tarjimly, an app which connects us to refugees in real-time. You can find Tarjimly on the App store on your mobile device. This gives us a great opportunity to give back directly to refugees despite the inconveniences of the pandemic.  

Look out for more exciting Refugee Response projects in coming terms too! COVID-19 will not stop us from building bridges to help refugees around the world.  

The Refugee Response Team