Ines and Rocky from Dover Court International School had a once in a lifetime opportunity to represent their school at this student empowering summit.
Being part of the Nord Anglia Education (NAE) group of schools allows Dover Court International School to provide its students with some amazing learning opportunities beyond the classroom. For example, the school has exclusive collaborations with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Juilliard School, and even UNICEF.
This recent summer, two students from Dover Court had the opportunity to participate in one of these exclusive collaborations. Ines and Rocky represented their school at the annual NAE-UNICEF Summit that was held in New York. This summit is a collaboration between NAE and UNICEF, where student delegates from all NAE schools come together to demonstrate how their schools are working to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). The Year 11 and 12 Doverians were among 100 student delegates who attended this year’s summit, the largest one yet.
Student empowerment in action at NAE-UNICEF Summit 2023
In a school blog post, Ines wrote that her experience at the NAE-UNICEF Summit was an incredibly empowering one. Not only did she and Rocky get to learn more about the SDGs, they also got to come up with ideas on what their school can do to drive progress towards these goals.
The summit started with a One-Minute Solution workshop that required student delegates to work together to come up with a clear, achievable solution to a given SDG. They were then tasked to conduct research on their assigned SDG for The World’s Largest Lesson: 2023 Halfway Mark for the Global Goals workshop. Student delegates also got to flex their creative muscle in Playbook for Activism, where they develop innovative and attainable solutions together.
According to Ines, all of these workshops helped her understand how to come up with simple and effective actions within a local community. “The workshops allowed us to discover ways we can create a direct impact towards these goals in our own schools and communities, even if solutions seem impossible or too big to manage at first,” she said.
Students develop crucial soft skills during the summit
One of the workshops that took place during the summit was facilitated by Generation Global, a global citizenship education programme by the Tony Blair Institute. This workshop taught student delegates the importance of dialogue when discussing different concerns, and the skills needed to do this successfully. Ines reported that she learned effective communication skills and empathy from this workshop, both of which are important for her to navigate our globalised world.
Collaboration is another essential skill that Ines and other student delegates picked up at the summit. They were asked to work in groups for most workshops as well as to prepare for the SDG conference. Ines shared, “Preparing for the conference was a great opportunity for us to work in groups to look deeper into the SDGs we’re researching and the issues within that impact us and our communities the most.” Ines’ team focused on Goal 3 (good health and well-being), specifically narrowing down to the concern of vaping within schools and among youth.
The biggest takeaway: a small action can make a big difference
For Ines, the most notable thing she learned from her experience at the NAE-UNICEF Summit is that a small-scale goal can still have a wide positive effect. She also mentioned that she feels extremely fortunate to have had the chance to be part of the summit. “The conference was an amazing opportunity for us to present our own ideas and learn from each other. We also learned the action we could take within our schools, and as a Nord Anglia community,” Ines said.
Families can find out more about the exceptional learning experiences that Dover Court provides its students through its website, or arrange for a personalised school tour with its Admissions team.
This post is in partnership with Dover Court International School.
