UOI guest speaker - FRIENDS International

As part of our UOI into "How we organise ourselves" we had James from Friends International come and talk to the grade 4 children.
He talked to them about how Friends markets themselves as a social business. He explained that their core work is working to help children and families get off the street. To help fund this they rely on donations from donors as well as what they sell in their shops. The funds they raise go back into their organisation to help support children and families.

His biggest message to the children was if they want to help the best way they can is to ignore the children begging and to purchase items from their shops as the money goes directly back into Friends International
Check out their website.

Friends International

Lisa from Friends International who is their marketing and product designer talked about their biggest seller the paper bead necklace and bracelets.

She talked about how they train adults to make these products in their homes and then friends buys it off them. The women then make enough money to feed and support their families. Lisa then got the children to come up with some new designs that they could create with the paper beads. Some very cleaver designs.

Guest Speaker - Andy from Epicure

Today we had Mr Andy from Epicure who runs the school cafeteria. Andy came over to the Grade 4's to talk about how the company he works for markets the cafeteria in ISPP. and in other schools in Asia.

 Epicure is a catering company foundered 13years ago in Thailand where there was a need for lunch meals to be improved in schools.

Andy talked to the children about their responsibility to provide healthy lunches to the children and staff and how hard they work in providing this by having a varying balanced menu.
He spoke how they research safe and reliable local produce farmers and retailers to provide food to the cafeteria. They first must met a high international safety standard.

Andy talked about the overheads they have; Expenses - food, wages, maintenance on equipment, rental cost and how it is important to keep within budget.

Khmer New Year

Today our wonderful teaching assistance Mr Puy spoke to the grade 4 children about Khmer New Year.

He explained the origins of the story behind new year and some of the activities and games that will be taking place in the villages.


The youtube videos below are great.

One tells the story of Khmer New Year. It is in Khmer and very interesting.


The second video gives the reason why new year is celebrated in April.

Enjoy....

សប្បាយរីករាយ ឆ្នាំថ្មី ខ្មែរ

sabbayrikreay  chhna thmei  khmer

Peace and Conflict guest speaker

On Thursday we were lucky enough to have the wonderful Karen Skelly from Secondary school come and talk to the grade 4 children about conflict resolution.

She really got into character and made the children really think about how the treat people.


She used the example of Dr Suess "The Sneetches" where one group of sneetches treat another group unfairly because of the way they look.



She did a great role play with us where she divided the class into two random group were the different groups were treated differently because of the stars she gave them to wear.
Some amazing reflection afterwards.


See below some of the wonderful things the children said.

Social experiment / Sneetches video / story

If you weren’t wearing a coloured dot how did you feel about the students who were wearing a coloured dot?

• Envy, jealousy, sadness, anger
• Really jealous and sad. I was annoyed.
• It felt it was not fair - why do they get special things.
• We wondered why it was not equal. We were embarrassed because we were sitting on the floor.
• We felt different.
• 
  

  

  We felt humility.
• We thought it was unfair and thought people were being mean.

If you were wearing a coloured dot how did you feel?

• Once I had the dot and was sitting in the chair I felt a lot better. i felt special.
• I felt pride, freedom - I could speak, have fun.
• I was excited and interested.
• 
  I was happy
• I felt I was well treated, strong and powerful.
• I had access to privilege.
• I felt happy, lucky
• I felt bad for the other people
• I felt like I had more access to all the good things
• I felt special.

What feelings did you have during the activity?

• curious, nervous, wondering
• I felt it was unfair and I got bored when I was on the floor
• I felt happy when I had a dot and sad when i did not have a dot
• I was confused - why did they get a dot?
• I was wondering why we were being unfair
• divided
• jealousy, anger, sadness and happiness

What did you learn from the activity and the video?

• To be fair even though we are all different
• we have to be respectful
• Change what we do not who we are
• Everyone should be equal - no matter skin color, wealth
• We can all be special and still be different
• To treat people fairly
• Include everyone and treat all fairly.
• We have to think about how the other feel
• We can all change what we do to be more equal, more fair
• It does not matter what you look like you can still be equal
• We felt conflicted when we did not have stars and more peaceful when we had a star

Actions you will take to help everyone feel like they belong?

• I will include everyone when I play a game
• I will be caring to everyone
• I will treat everyone equally
• I will help my mother
• Say hello / good morning to everyone
• I will be open minded when listening to other students
• Smile more
• 
  Try to learn words in other people’s languages
• I will not take revenge or be selfish
• I will be friendly to everyone and make everyone feel special - no matter what they look like
• Share always
• Accept everybody
• If I see see someone on their own in the playground I will ask them if they want to play with us.
• I will think about how other people are feeling and try to make them feel at home, comfortable.

Energy guest speaker

Today we had Mr Pisey from Kang HWA E & C  a local renewable energy company come and talk to the children about "What is Energy". He also talked about non-renewable and  using renewable energy - solar power as an alternative.









It was great listening to him and hearing about alternative ways to generate power.

It would be great if more people were using renewable power around the world vs non-renewable (oil, coal) which is causing major pollution in the world.



Maybe these G4 children will be the future drivers of renewable energy usage in Cambodia and around the world.

Thank you to Gangmin's mother Si-yeon for organising and bringing in Mr Pisey