CRafting global citizens: aes's international service learning

In the Elementary School, we are working hard to provide experiences for our students to develop relationships with our school community and the greater local community. Our students in Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 5 plan and organize gratitude events for our school staff, advocate for peace and the environment, collect warm clothing and blankets for local NGOs, and work with locally displaced people or local schools for the underprivileged. Much of our work is community service-based, however, we aspire toward a service-learning model. In the school year 2018–2019, Service Learning was defined as a student-led, meaningful process that begins with a community need and ends with a positive change for everyone involved.

All students in the Middle School have multiple opportunities to participate in service organizations that provide education, interaction, or intervention during the school year.  The Middle School has quite a variety of service opportunities available to students. Students are of service to their peers, through our leadership model, and to the local population through some outreach programs such as HOPE Club and Reach Out and by participating in the service trips to:

• Friendicoes Animal Shelter

• Palna Orphanage

• HelpAge Senior Citizen Home

• Blind School Candlemaking (with Roots and Shoots)

• Salaam Baalak Trust Walk

Grade 6 students spend time as an entire grade level exploring and reflecting what service is, who and what it serves, opportunities for service that take place in Delhi, and simulations to help spark an understanding of what it feels like to need service.

Grade 7 students experience service through an organized advisory interaction with local school children.  While teachers organize and guide this, activities are inspired and led by students.

Grade 8 students design, develop, and implement a service-learning experience as part of their first-semester advisory program. In addition, many Grade 8 students blend a component of community service into the interdisciplinary Population Project.  These students independently choose to share information they researched on an issue about India through a public service announcement, an active letter campaign, or direct hours of community service.  Moreover, the Grade 8 students consistently serve as role models for Amnesty, Reach Out, and the other small student-initiated drives.

For more than 60 years, the motto at AES has been Enter to Learn. Leave to Serve. We take our commitment seriously. We have opportunities for students to not only understand and take responsible action within the curriculum, but also participate in healthy extracurricular service club offerings. In addition, we have developed an infrastructure that invites and encourages students to identify areas of need and develop additional programs through a student-inspired, student-initiated, student-run model.

The Community Service Council (CSC) Vision: 

An AES community in which every student is intrinsically motivated and empowered to bring about meaningful and sustainable change in both our immediate and larger communities.

The Community Service Council (CSC) Mission: 

To lead, support, and coordinate various service clubs within the School focused on Delhi and India.

The Goal of the CSC is to:

• Access and then serve the most direct needs of our community, neighborhood, and host country.
• Create Global Citizens who are able to understand and reflect on global needs/humanities.
• Fulfill a genuine need for recipients that can be sustained over time.
• Provide the opportunity to create mutual trust, respect, and joy among all participating while leading to self-reliance for the beneficiaries.
• Offer students opportunities for learning leadership and advocacy skills as well as the critical thinking needed to solve complex issues the world faces.
• Leave students believing that they can make a positive difference.

The HS Service Clubs

The American Embassy School HS Service Council consists of service clubs, each with two Student Leaders and a Faculty Advisor. The responsibilities in these clubs range from teaching underprivileged children, empowering women, providing health care, and interacting with disabled and sick people to helping make Delhi and AES more green, advocating for human rights, for equality and acceptance for all, or helping animals at a shelter. At AES, there is a service club to meet everyone’s strengths so that every high school student has the opportunity to be a part of something bigger and to impact the lives of people in our community.