Friday 29 March 2013

GINS Conferences 2013

What is GINS? It stands for Global Issues Network, Saigon. GIN is a worldwide organisation for education on global issues, inspired by the book High Noon by Jean-Francois Rischard explaining that we have just 20 years to solve 20 problems.

When was it? Held on 8, 9th and 10th March.

Where was it? This year it was hosted by ISHCMC.

Who went? We sent BIS representatives from Year 12 this time but next year we would like to send students from Year 6 upwards. Students from all around the city attended – from both international schools and Vietnamese universities. Over 300 students attended!

What did it involve? It is a provision for increasing global awareness on a local scale for students allowing students to challenge their skills in discussion, debate, problem solving, budget controlling, leadership and group work, presentations, films, workshop leading, teaching, public speaking…see the website: http://ginsaigon2013.nl.ae/

What did the BIS delegates think of it?

The GANGS sessions were excellent. We discussed and set SMART targets on trying to overcome Deforestation (the winners of the GANG competition were human trafficking, Illegal Drugs and Poverty). I employed my motivational skills to question others in the group, suggest ideas and enable us to formulate a plan of action. Nghia Mai Year 12

I enjoyed it because there were so many great minds who thought differently. I was amazed to find a year 7 coming up with innovative ideas like finding a NGO for Fishing and asked them for help to make our solutions more achievable when I was in the Fisheries depletion committee for GANGS. I really enjoyed these enriching sessions. We also learned from the student led workshops on how to deal with problems and learnt new activities to enhance our experiences in our service communities. I was told by my peers that I was very inspiring because of the actions have taken in my community service commitments which they impressive. I would recommend other people to join next year so that they can find out that Service is more than joining a Community Service club, its learning new ways of being creative, learning about yourself and being motivated for a cause. Adam Matsukai Year 12

It was an extremely enlightening conference to attend and I would definitely recommend this conference to anyone else who is interested in learning more about Community Service, meeting new people, making new friends, and learning about global issues as well as starting a project that will help this world issue in the future.

In my opinion the main values of this conference were: teamwork, global awareness, being able to share your opinion, and definitely getting you to work with people you are not used to. Throughout the conference I think I learnt a lot of things. One of the main things I have learnt from this conference is that you are not always going to be able to work with people you are comfortable with. And for this reason, the GIN conference helps its delegate, without realizing that it does, to improve their communication skills and help them get comfortable with other people. Personally, I think everyone who went to the conference was inspired to do something or the other. I don’t think there was a person in there who didn’t take something back, whether it was from the student ted talks, the guest key note speaker, or the motivational speeches by the students or the workshops. Although, the thing I was most inspired by was the amount of effort put into getting the conference organized. I realized this when I got home after the second day, after the amazing race, how difficult it would have been to organize the entire three days and ensure it runs the way it does. Keeping that in mind, it inspired me to try and initiate my own projects sometime in the future. Hetvi Shah Year 12
 

Should you be involved next year? Most definitely YES!!!

When is it next year? March 2014 hosted by SSIS

Look out for the advertising in term 1 next year and get ready to sign up!

 
Emma Morris
Community Service Projects Manager

 

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