The World Bicycle Relief is an action who aims at supporting underprivileged children in Africa who walk long distances only to attend school. All the fundraising is used to supply bikes to many of these children so they can make their way to and from school easier.

Coach Jamie set the challenge to Mr Rob, who mobilized many of his colleagues and Léman students to participate in a challenge. A 10 x 5Kms run, in relays vs a bike ride around the lake ( roughly 175Kms ). The first team to complete the challenge wins the bikers vs runners cup 🙂 Mr Rob, on his bike, was accompanying the runners for support.

The two teams: Riders vs Mr Rob and Antoni, just before the start of the challenge… and the cup.

Amirhossein celebrating with Mr Rob the end of their relay under the hot sun.

Mr Rob encouraging Teo for another relay of 5kms.

Teo, in full effort

Roi and Mr Rob… team spirit

… after the effort, a shade does wonders to Roi 🙂

The runners from Léman house were: Antoni, Ablai, Martin, Amirhossein, Teo and Roi. Well done for their effort and competitive spirit… and the runners won the challenge !!!

https://www.cdldailychallenge.com/wbr23

Happy 17th birthday Michel. We wish lots of joy, friends, good health and laughs. From all your Léman family.

Well done to Martin and Kosei for their Panthers Sports Awards which celebrate all those who during the year have excelled in dedication, sportsmanship and effort in our extensive sports programme.

Praise also to Gabriel and Max who were both also awarded but could not make it to this ceremony. Léman House is always committed to the values of sports, being them individual or in teams and we certainly are proud of these boys for their E in RISE ( Excellence ).

It was a special evening for our Quique and the lovely Marusya who enjoyed a special dinner yesterday.

This privilege dates back from when we did a Charity bid in support of the victims of the Turkey earthquake. Marcelo won the bid but he felt he should offer the privilege to his friend Quique who then shared it with Marusya.

Lovely gesture from Marcelo who showed how great his heart is.

And in every lovely story there’s an element of comedy and that was provided by Mr Antonio who, as part of the deal, did all the table setting and waitering for the lucky Marusya and Quique… they only had to sit down and enjoy the food and the service.

The menu consisted of:

• Green salad, tomato and cucumber salad with its balsamic vinegar sauce
• Couscous
• Lemon pie
• Ice Tea and water

A lovely, generous gesture from all of us and a special moment for two of them 🙂

Birthdays are always a big celebration in Leman House and today was Jeff’s turn to get his cake and to receive all the affection from his friends.

We wish you all the best in your life Jeff. Happy Birthday to you 🙂

Whoa… we are back again 🙂 It’s always surprising to realize how quick time can fly when you’re having fun

We hope everyone had a great spring break and we are now open for business as usual. For the coming weeks a lot of excitement is planned to take place hand in hand with some serious work to be done.

On the academic side, the end of the year means exams approaching: all boys will be focusing on these important tests which will have an effective impact on their grades. This is even more important for those who are now seniors and working for their university applications. For our grade 12s, in early June we will have the emotional Leavers Ceremonies, crowned by the formal Graduation on June the 3rd.

With the first rays of Summer approaching, the Lake Activities will pick up again. We expect to explore this unique natural feature again as it is such a privilege to have a beautiful lake, minutes away from our school.

And of course on sight we have the summer break… 🙂 These next two months will be eventful so here is a good reason to watch this space.

For the moment we are welcoming back all the boys and we wish them a wonderful final term.

…and so another term is over and we attack the Spring break with a lovely sense of accomplishment. So many things to celebrate, moments spent together, academic and personal successes… and obviously some struggles which are only part of life.

For now it’s time to enjoy the break, recharge batteries, see the family and friends. In two weeks we will embrace the final stretch of the year: end of Marking Period, exams, lake activities, trips and for our grade 12s, Graduation.

A lot to look forward to… just watch this space.

Almost end of term means end of Wellbeing Pillar. Today in the House Meeting it was time to wrap up the reflections done these weeks and find some conclusions.

We thank Emad for his Advocate work and below we can see the final video of this Pillar

@thatboardingvibe

Online Safety ! Well done to the advocates. First video credit to @tamar #thatboardingvibe #onlinesafety #pillar4 #passwords #stoptheloop

♬ original sound – CDLivin’

Secondly we had the presentation of the Léman Candidates for the Student Government.

Our House is strongly represented and we encourage the boys to work hard and do their best for the school community.

Good luck boys and stay safe online 🙂

The second part of our Wellbeing topic on Online safety was discussed today. Everybody got engaged in a Kahoot on online safety where we got hints and tips on how to be safe online. Spam messages, phishing, stolen passwords, scams and so many other features are strategies to retrieve personal information from us which will surely be used illegally.

Our safety therefore depends a lot on our reflexes and our knowledge in selecting in what we click on the web. Being aware is a first step… being smart and suspicious is a second one. Better safe than sorry, online as well.

Well done to Ablai and Emad who did a great job in leading this session and being reliable and eloquent advocates of this Pillar.

In today’s House Assembly we have started discussing the first take away point for the 4th Pillar of our Wellbeing Programme.

Online Life Vs Real Life

Our House Advocate was Emad who took over the job of running the session and launching the debate with his housemates.

We happy to announce that the Léman team has now the invaluable support of Mr Julien Fournier. Julien is joining our team and his first main task will be to support all our students with their school work and we are sure it will produce great results.

Julien is a qualified teacher with years of experience in several different countries in Europe and Africa… so he embodies already our spirit of Excellence and Internationalism.

Welcome Julien, to the Léman family

After a lovely February break we are now back in business until the April break.

For some of us, this was an opportunity to go home, see the family and friends and somehow recharge our batteries for the weeks ahead. Others, perhaps the lucky ones :), had the fantastic possibility of spending a whole week in Crans-Montana. The weather was a-ma-zing even if it meant that we didn’t have as much snow as we would have dreamt of. However it was still enough to enjoy the slopes, spend time with friends, relax, do some activities and even witness the Ski World Cup happening right next to us.

Charles focused on his curling skills

Asiimwe, up or down the slope 🙂

Aijuka and Oleg getting ready

Chady… aprehensive 🙂

Quique, excited

Asiimwe the curling master.

Aydan… the CR7 of curling 🙂

House chores

Everybody helping out sweeping 😛

Now it’s time to get back on track and prepare for the important weeks ahead. Energies should be high and we can’t wait for the coming weeks to unfold.

Welcome back everyone 🙂

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.

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 🙂

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.

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.

🙂

With the arrival of Christmas come the decorations and festivities.

Amirhossein and Seyed have built our Gingerbread House and we have to say that seeing their enthusiasm the foundations must be of good quality 🙂

The question now will be… when will we get to eat it? 😀

Well done and a round of applause to Antoni, Ablai, Rakann, Alex, Yosuke and Roi for their participation in the Escalade Run Cadets A, today in the streets of Geneva. It’s great to see their willingness to join the thousands of people who gather to celebrate this special event in the history of the Geneva Canton.

And for us it’s a proud moment to see them doing their best and pushing themselves but always in a spirit of comradery and fair-play.

Congratulations boys 🙂

Support is always important when we face a new challenge and this is what Tony and Mr Rob gave each other for the Escalade Run 2022.

Beyond the challenge, this traditional run in the streets of Geneva is involved in a fantastic atmosphere and will surely be a great memory for Tony.

Well done for participation, sportsmanship and for pushing yourself, Tony.

More runners will take their part tomorrow in the younger categories.

When things are done with our hearts, smiles and joy are the main ingredients.

Thank you to those who helped out in the Gift Box Appeal. This is CDL Charity at its best

It sure is a basic and elementary expectation but it’s never too much to remind the boys of how important a tidy and organized room is for each one of us.

Besides that, it’s a matter of respect not just for themselves but also towards the roommates, cleaning ladies, House staff etc…

Simple gestures can sometimes convey an important message and therefore this was a particular effort we have done this week to ensure our rooms are (almost:) ) always presentable.

True that it’s not the most popular chore to do in a cloudy morning but surely everyone acknowledges the pleasure of walking back from school and having a tidy, neat and comfortable room to get back to and relax, rest or study.

Respect to these boys!!! 🙂

Last week we started our 2nd Pillar of our Wellbeing Programme.

It is a very delicate topic but it’s good to be able to talk about it openly and objectively. As in pillar 1, we have two take away points. This week we discussed about Take Away point 1

Take away point 1 – Integration and diversity are part of the international agenda of the world’s most important institutions.  

We talk about it at a lower level, at schools, work and public places. However, that topic is at the heart of the identity of all the major international organizations and that is something that sometimes we overlook to consider diversity something to think of at an individual level. Beyond the political message on the importance of diversity, institutions like the UN have a policy of promoting diversity in their work force and enabling all types of people to access job position within their ranks and therefore setting the example on integration and teamwork.   

Globally what we want to achieve with this point is that students understand that Diversity and Integration are present far beyond the school environment or our individual background and that it’s a top priority in the world today. Sometimes, this might be overlooked, and we believe it’s important they acknowledge that the work and reflection being done here is echoed in the World Leading Institutions.

Quique has decided to iron his own shirts… With the help of Mr Roger, he took his first steps in the ironing arts and has found his call in life 🙂

Needless to say his mother is delighted with the idea 😉

Jeune Genevois means a bank holiday, which equals to “day with no classes”, which equals to day trip to Lausanne since all shops and venues are closed in Geneva.

A big group of boarders took advantage of this to visit the city, enjoy the views, do some shopping and relax in this beautiful city on the north shore of the Lake.

Tomorrow we will be heading to the mountains… more news will follow 🙂

Roi wants to improve his English and he wants to do it quickly. Therefore, in the evening Roi always comes to us, before bed time and together we do some reading. We help Roi understanding what he is reading and he is making quick progress.

This evening, Roi brought a new book… Johnny English, the secret agent that became famous thanks to actor Rowan Atkinson.

If the book is as funny as the movie we are gonna have some good laughs 🙂