Learn to know, Learn to do, Learn to be, Learn to live together

To see Anita’s portfolio of targets and reflections for the Global Ambassador Award please see below on this post.

Anita facilitating another meeting!

Comment from Anita:

My award took me one year to complete (approximately). After the initiation was started, I made a checklist of what I had already achieved and what I still needed to do. I found this award gave me a chance to organise myself and write down and reflect what I have done so far. I gained more skills such as commitment to keeping up to date with my diary and also do my best and be proud of what I have done. I enjoyed working on this award for it really challenges you in all aspects and gets you out of your comfort zone in one way or another. The journey wasn’t easy but crossing the finish line made it all worth it.

Anita in the zone for her basketball team

Congratulations Anita on being an amazing Global Citizen.  We look forward to hearing about your progress and achievements in becoming a Global Mentor.

 Assessed by: Paul Crouch, Brittany Tang and Sarah Travis-Mulford

Anita’s targets and reflections for the Global Ambassador Award:

Learn to Know

Business and Social Enterprise

In year 10, I joined a business enterprise at the school called the Goldfish PLC. I got the position of the public relations and learned the skills of how to earn profit from the products that we sell as well as advertise the products to make a good sale. I got to participate in many events to help Goldfish raise money for a NGO called PATT (Plant a Tree Today) foundation. A few things we did for example selling refreshments at Picnic in the Park for Peace, Arabian Nights and the Summer Concert which I went to. We also got a chance selling Christmas Cards that were designed from our own student body.

Facilitating Debate

Since I have been elected the Chairperson of the Eco-Committee, I have had the chance to hold a formal meeting with the PR Director (Sage), the Environment Pillar Leader (Paige), the Ex-Chair (Mae), a Senior Management (Mr. Crouch), the Primary rep (Jules), Teacher (Mr. Dale), ACWA Rep (Kai-Lung) and a year Pillar Leader (Panchiwa). I spent the night before finalizing my ideas and plans for the meeting and on the day while I was a little nervous I was more excited to start the meeting and make it successful. We recapped on the ideas and chose one from each theme to follow through. I think the meeting was quite successful and am ready to make another good meeting soon.

Sustainable Action and Thinking

I went on the ICE conference this year and for the Pre service trip, I went to plant trees with PATT at Prapadueng. I planted 23 trees that day and learned a lot about how that area was like the Green Belt for Bangkok and produced most of Bangkok’s oxygen. I had a great time even thought there were a lot of mosquitoes and felt like I had achieved something by the end of the day.

Learning Another Language

A new language I have learnt is Spanish. I have been studying it since year 7 and went to Peru on Exchange and RSIS to improve on my language. I have taken my IGSCEs for Spanish already and I hope I will get a good grade for it.

Target: I would like to continue this language and one day be able to communicate in it fluently. 

Learn to Be

Public Speaker     

At the Round Square Conference “We Walk Together” I got a chance to lead a Barazza group with older students. I found this experience one of the most useful and valuable skill I’ve learnt so far. For me, to be able to facilitate with older students and to gain the respect from them and have them listen and allow me to share ideas and help them out turned out to teach me so much about leadership and about respect. I realized that no matter how old one is, they are still able to have great ideas and that we should always give everyone a chance to take, no matter how small they are. Being able to lead the Barazza group also gave me many skills that I still use today when I lead a group. I got taught how to use ice breakers and get the group to all contribute. I also learned to spread out work and give everyone a chance to feedback about what they have done.

Challenged with a sense of Personal Adventure          

I have participated in Koh Chang every year since year 7. I learned many skills such as first aid, saving lives and going on many adventures such as treks, cycling and kayaking. On the recent trip, I spent the whole day kayaking to an island collecting clues and “prizes” for our allocation to stay our night. I found this adventure fun and challenging for it tested my endurance as well as team work skills. We also had to make our own dinner that night which I found very fun and had a chance to sit around a bon fire that night. On the week in Koh Chang, we also get allocated jobs within the camp for example washing the dishes as well as get lessons and sessions on interesting activities for example team building or creativity. I enjoy going to Koh Chang very much even though there were hard times and will miss not being able to go this year.

Team Player

I joined the Basketball Team since year 8 for Fobissea. At that point I wasn’t such a good player and needed lots of improvements. Today, I believe that I am a reasonable player that can shoot occasional baskets and defend the opponents from scoring. I think my passion for basketball started in year 10 when Coach told me that I had potential to become a great player.  That gave me motivation to try hard and become good at something. I thrived to achieve and practiced hard to impress the Coach and improve my skills. I got better and better. My dribbling is no longer weak and my throw is mostly accurate. I am more resilient and can play on court for longer than I did before. I am finally put first when it comes to defending and not one of the last picked like when I was in year 8. This made me realize how much I have gotten better and how I will continue to improve as long and I have passion for it. I have truly become one member of an amazing basketball team and I feel like I do truly earn the medal when we got one. I realized that not only have I impressed teachers about my improvement but I have also impressed myself. I had given myself something to hold on to and develop into something better. I am proud of what I have achieved and aim to continue doing better

Target: Continue Basketball wherever I go next and keep improving. Make more accurate shots at the basket.

Anita, right, with YaYa and Champagne at the showing of ‘Girl Rising’

Proactive and Innovative

I joined Girl Up in the Beginning of term 2 for I thought this organization would be a good project to join for I am quite a feminist and believe in equality for woman in the world. As a fundraiser and an awareness campaign, Girl Up decided to host a Movie night at the Regent’s School Pattaya with a movie called “Girl Raising”. We sold tickets under the clock tower at lunch time two weeks before the show and advertised students to buy them before the day. We jot names of all our customers to ensure that they would still be able to join in case the lost their ticket. We also planned to light 100 lanterns to mark the 100 years of the death of … who died to prove the value of a woman’s life. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time and could not get them on time. We were also fortunate to have Yaya come along as a guest to our event. We got to interview her about her time at The Regent’s and her current life. I thoroughly enjoyed this event for the movie was inspiring and we raised a lot of money and it was a great success.

Target: to host another event in the Girl Up organization and raise more money to help girls around the world.

Learn to Do

Academic Achievement

An article on a global issue:

Ending Gender Inequality

Did you know that two thirds of the world’s working hours are done by women, but they only earn 10% of the world’s income? Or that 60% of 77 million children without primary education are girls?

Research says that woman own less than 1% of the world’s property, and that out of 876 million adults worldwide that cannot read or write, two thirds of that are woman. 

Ever thought how gender inequality is stopping these beautiful human from being treated fairly with respect pride?

 Gender inequality is one of the Millennium Development Goals that is considered heavily on and thought carefully through about how we can make every human being have equal chances, an equal say and equal opportunities, especially woman and girls so they can be treated fairly. Girls should have a chance to learn to read and write and finish their schooling fully instead of being taken out in the middle of education to help their parents with work to allow their male relatives to learn. According to the United Nations Population Fund women who are educated are more likely to have fewer children, become pregnant at a more appropriate age than woman who were denied schooling and will have healthier children too. Most important, they are more likely to send their own children onto full education.

Furthermore, promoting gender inequality will have a positive effect on reducing poverty, another MDG that is extremely important and thoroughly thought through. When woman get their healthy dose of education, they would be able to think carefully before doing something for example, they wouldn’t have more children than they can afford to take good care of. They would also be able to get a better and higher waged job which will also bring more respect to woman throughout the community. With women getting more wages and fewer children, they would be able to take care of their family properly thus they would be free of poverty and reducing it.

 Women with a voice make great roles in our human society with more ideas, ways to solving problems and are represented like the source of light in a dark atmosphere. By giving woman a chance to vote and a chance to have a say is like allowing a hermit crab out of its shell and when that time comes, the earth would become an unfolded map full of information.

Thailand has a few societies/foundations that help and encourage women to become brave and independent people who can express whatever they want, whenever they want and wherever they want. A very powerful person who believes in women and a book with unread mysteries is Khun Mechai. He believed in “giving women a choice” and made sure that women know how many children they’re going to have and that they and their children have a higher chance of good education and by that, you reduce the chance of a family not being able to care for their family and also increase confidence in woman. Empowered women ultimately lead to an empowered community.

To conclude, I would like to say that I do believe that women need to be equal. We must have a say and equal chances and gender inequality must be stopped. We should also advertise about this so it becomes a well-known issue and every can help to end this. Remember, “If you educate a man, you educate a person but if you educate a woman, you educate a family.”

Thank you for reading,

Anita van Dam

Culturally Aware and Interactive

I participated in all three events. I performed for Green House for Loy Krathong, I went to Kanchanaburi for Round Square week and I went to help decorate and plan the Dutch room for this year’s International Day. I enjoyed going to all of them very much and had a great time!    

Expressing the Artist in You

In the end of year 10, I participated in a play called “West Side Story”. This gave me a chance to get out of my comfort zone and try being a new character I’ve never done. I found it challenging for my character had a Latin American background and I struggled to get the accent and stay in tune with the songs I had to sing. However, I enjoyed this play for I got to bond with many new people and experience something new.

I painted this piece of Art for the Kenyan Conference. The theme was Non Existence without Co Existence. I really enjoyed painting this piece and hoped that people who saw it got inspired.

Sustainable Action and Thinking

ACWA is an animal-based organization that was created by Ms. Kay and me 2 years ago. We aim to raise awareness in school as well as help out in local communities and organisations and raise money by selling their merchandise. I enjoy being in this group and helping out. We have helped out with ACRES (based in Singapore), WFFT and Love Wildlife.

Learn to Live Together

Community Partnerships

I participated in clean up the world as well organised it to raise awareness and clean up an area in different areas in Thailand. This organisation is known globally to clean up different places in different countries. We focused ourselves to clean up a local beach in Rayong with a local community partner who helps children with AIDS. We had sessions of activity then beach cleaning. We all had a group time and I got a chance to bond with the children in my group. Although it was a hot day and the many complained, we all did our part in cleaning up the beach. At the end of the day we ended for lunch and then got ice cream for the kids. I really want to be able to participate in another event similar to this for I really enjoyed helping out in the community.

Personal Confidence

I participated in the Round Square Conference in Kenya last April with 5 other students in my school. My experience in Kenya was wonderful. Africa, like every other continent is entirely different and not at all what people think it is. Africa has a huge variety of the world’s animals and nature and beautiful cities for example Nairobi and Johannesburg. Going to the conference and meeting everyone with the same passion was brilliant but it was also nice meeting the people of Kenya and experience new things as well as help out. It is always nice to see people being so kind and caring as well as being grateful for what they have and making the best of it. Before the conference, we had a chance to stay at Starehe which is a school that runs purely by funds. The leadership skills at the school were excellent and I learned a lot. At the conference, we also got a chance to go on safaris and listen to many inspiring keynote speakers. I will never forget the memories from Kenya.

Target: To make the Ice conference as good and have great memories for students to take back.

Anita in Peru with her new friends on the RSIS project

Service Learning

Last summer I had a chance to visit Peru for a RSIS programme where I got a chance to buil a green house for a small village up in Cusco for the primary children to help with the malnourishment within the area. I got a chance to learn how to construct a greenhouse out of rocks and mud. It was challenging and hard work but I felt rewarded about what we achieved each day. In the end, we managed to make a roofless greenhouse before heading back down for 3 days break. Here, we visited hot springs, old historical Incan castles and the very famous Machu Picchu. After our rest, we headed back down for more work. We finished the greenhouse in two days after hard work and headed to build cold frames which are mini greenhouses for families in the village. Before we left, we had a chance to visit a waterfall and then had a special Peruvian lunch before a game of football with the villagers and a show in the evening where we got to wear traditional costumes while singing around a bonfire. There are so many people and memories that I will never forget and I would want to revisit them someday with my friends again.

Further Goals:

• Get a minimum of 35 points for IB.
• Continue being active (Play basketball for the team).
• Contribute to the school and make a difference.