Today we had again the visit of Ms Jody. Our counselor stopped by to give us a quick briefing on empathy.

During her talk we came to conclude that empathy is the first step that leads us to be sensitive to the importance of  Community Service. As we help others, we express our empathy.

As indicated in the graph below, this is expressed in different levels and quite often without us even noticing it.

As mentioned before and so many times, helping others is the best way of fighting differences in society and also to give us a glimpse of what life is about in a point of view sometimes totally opposite to our.

Nae Nae, this young student, explains on her Ted Talk that the benefits are not only for those who receive. Actually, by giving we also end up receiving, something that quite often has been overlooked.

Steam, bubbles, relaxing light, thermal water, thanks to these elements we could relax today at the Bain Bleu Spa in Geneva.

Our students have been able to go to a Spa as a reward for their efforts in this last part of the semester, in the Spa there were several pools, one of them outdoor with views of Lake Léman, with water jets, bubbles, and a sauna with herbal scented steam.

Without a doubt a relaxing experience that will help us to face these last weeks before the holidays with strength.

Finally the long awaited date has arrived, the volleyball tournament!

Today three of our students, Kotaro, Mateus and Taichi attended a tournament with the CDL team against other schools. And we have good news: they won all the matches!

Despite having to get up early on a Saturday morning, our players put on their best performance and enjoyed the morning with their teammates.

From Léman 2 we want to congratulate all the team and coaches, thank you very much for your effort, but above all to a very important person for us, we want to give a big hug to Kotaro, we really appreciate you!

It’s not about what or about who… It’s about helping and being solidary.

Leman 2 and CDL Boarding have compiled 58 gift boxes to be distributed to children in need, in eastern Europe.

It’s inspiring to see the sense of humanitarian spirit that runs among our community and that we want to keep fostering.

Thank you to everyone involved.

Volleyball is extremely popular among CDL students. The Volley Club and the Extracurricular practices are a mine of talents at this sport.

Léman 2 was well represented in the first internal tournament. Taichi and Kotaro did very well and had a great time all morning competing with their peers.

A special word to our Mateus who got injured in the last practice and could not play. A twisted ankle will stop him from practicing for some weeks but he will be back stronger and hungry for some action 🙂

Bullying is the repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group by another person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power. It can happen face to face or online.

Despite being a famous and common phenomenon, “bullying” and its causes are still sometimes neglected and we believe it’s worth reflecting about its origins.

As human beings, we tend to identify ourselves with the people who share the same features as us. It can be a language, an history, a background, a physical trait or a personal experience. As we create bonds and links among people of the same group, instinctively we start defining defense strategies against those who do not share the same features or values. That is the principle of stereotypes.

A definition of stereotype can be “to believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same.” With it we assert our dominance, our power. We express jealousy or disagreement.

And this leads to discrimination because we wrongly believe that we are protecting ourselves by keeping apart from people different from us. It is a mechanism of defense who ends up causing more harm than good.

Bullying then happens as a result of this. We get blinded by our values, our features and we close our eyes to those who are different from us and ignore that so much more could bind us together.

Among many other things, bullying is then a form of discrimination. In the video below you can hear some testimonials about this and the effect on the people being discriminated.

It is interesting to see how discrimination, bullying and racism work very tightly together. It is therefore essential we tackle them all in order to eradicate such hurting behaviors.

Below we can also watch the Bullying Experiment. It’s worth having a look and question where would we stand in those case scenarios and what our actions would be? Would we intervene? Would we let go and ignore?

Finally, it is important to be able to identify bullying. One of the  messages of this pillar is that Bullying happens in different settings. It changes its context and frame in society and evolves around common day situations we face on an ordinary day.

We have formally introduced today, to the whole Boarding Community, the 2nd Pillar of our Wellbeing Programme.

As the title indicates we will be discussing about Bullying and how to protect us from it while we will work in promoting diversity not just here at CDL but also in our lives outside school, as a core value which is dear to us.

There is plenty of scope for discussions and debates but certainly there is no debate or discussion on the gravity of bullying. Yearly, thousands and thousands of people – young people – are victims of this phenomenon. Unfortunately, this is not just a matter of displaying a sense of discrimination towards someone. Unfortunately, the bullies sometimes go way too far in their unawareness and lack of tolerance. Bluntly speaking, thousands of people die because of bullying: either as a direct consequence, either because their self-esteem is so low that they end up ending their days themselves.

We can’t be indifferent to that. We are not.

The solution, is all in the hands of education. Promoting tolerance, diversity and respect are the key elements to this social therapy. The world needs it and we promote it as the source of better days.

Being open to diversity is being open to learn, to understand, to be flexible and receptive to perspectives. It is important and healthy to debate, to have different points of view and to deepen our reflection on who we are. But it is simply not acceptable to simply condone or discriminate just based on stereotypes.

As an international school, we pride ourselves in the sense of community we have. Realistically, there is so much more that links us than whatever differences we may have. So why focusing on the latter?

Our efforts in Community Service and Charity aim at bonding people and allowing them to see the world in the eyes of those in need of help. It allows us have a glimpse of a reality that it is quite often unknown to us, and with this, we can open our eyes to visions and feelings that we probable have never heard of.

CDL Boarding is working together, as a big family, and our projects in the coming weeks will focus in getting tighter together as a force aiming at uniting the world a little more.

Who should we fear? In any case, great job Kotaro for this detailed and accurate carving of our Halloween pumpkin… The scariest job ever

Well done and thank you to Taichi and Ayam for taking part on this initiative. It is great to see you aware of the needs of the society around you and above all, caring about the school and the lovely environment around us.

The community appreciates your efforts.