Do you embrace the international community, or do you prefer the convenience of building friendships within your own culture and language?

That was the topic of today’s reflection in our House Assembly.

As before, we brought Aijuka, Chady and Zihao on “stage” to talk about their experience.

Aijuka is this very open person, who really gets on well with everyone and is appreciated by everyone in return. Aijuka has no limits to his perception of friendships. For him Boarding is all about embracing as many chances as possible and since there is not many people from Uganda in the community, he feels that he has to link with everyone at the same level and he doesn’t feel the need to find cultural or language features in common to start building a friendship.

Chady is very much like Aijuka… he numbered some of his closest friends and they are from different nationalities. However, a certain pattern could be spotted where his friends who are francophones slightly outnumbered those who aren’t.

Finally Zihao, told us about his experience and acknowledged that his closest friends are all Chinese. They feel this feature is a great binding force among them as they understand each other better and share so much in common. Having said this Zihao does not exclude friends from other nationalities… he simply tends to bond more with the ones from the same language and nationality.

Our key point is that there is no right or wrong answer… this is simply a reflection point. In Boarding we are faced with this variety of scenarios when it comes to friendships and the most important thing is that each student finds his balance within the spectrum and we all live together in harmony and sane values.

Henry is ready

We will be heading to the mountains tomorrow and hopefully enjoy a lovely weekend of snow. In order to save any possible second, Henry got ready and he will possibly sleep with his ski outfit so he doesn’t waste a single moment over the weekend 🙂

House Assembly, student voice and Positive friendships

To start 2023 in great shape we had a full and energetic House Assembly tonight.

It was great to see so many students speaking to the group and being the spokesperson for their peers.

We had Amir speaking about respect and quiet times and Quique talking about Valentine’s Day and the Clubs available for the students.

 

For the core of the meeting, we had a couple of lovely testimonials that illustrated the take-away point of the Wellbeing Pillar 3, on Positive Friendships.

In Léman, there are plenty of lovely friendships, international ones.

Amirhossein and Carlos, good friends and roommates, shared with the group how they felt that their different backgrounds could not interfere with their friendship. They both agreed that friendships have nothing to do with nationalities but with what brings them together and what they like about each other.

 

Roi and Parga hit it off from the first day, even if they met only in September. Parga is passionate about sharing the same interests as Roi, mostly the sports they do together ( Golf and Tennis ). Roi, cherishes Parga as he helps him a lot with his English and he feels a lot of gratitude for that.

 

All in all, these boys are only a few among the dozens of international friendships created, only this year, in Léman House. We realize then what a privilege it is to live in this setting. We all have a lot to share and learn from each other and the good experiences that are within our reach are endless.

Internationalism, is a key element of CDL’s identity and Boarding fulfills this purpose with passion and joy.

 

Activity Lift-off

During this first weekend of the second semester we had a great time with diverse and fun activities. Our boys enjoyed sports, tours, cooking and creative activities during the weekend. Have a look at some of these moments captured:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Léman family

Our family got bigger over the break and we are fortunate to welcome 4 new students in January.

They are all different, from different places and they all bring something new and unique to us. All the other boys were welcoming and integration has been so easy thanks to that.

Stefan from Romania, Pedro from Brazil, Mykhail from Ukraine and Hernan from Mexico are the new Léman boys and we are delighted to have them.

🙂

Congratulations Amir!!

Over the holidays, Amir won golden prizes in all 5 categories (below) for the London young musicians competition. Well done Amir 🙂
  • Young Master aged 18 and under
  • Sonata Performance
  • Classical Periods Music Performance
  • Versatile Musician Award
  • Fantastic Technique Special Prize

Happy New Year for 2023!

We would like to wish all our Parents, Students, Agents and friends of the Léman boarding house a happy, healthy and prosperous 2023.

The Boarding house is open, ready and waiting, to welcome the students back for a semester full of friendships, growth, learning and FUN!