Today marked one of the most eagerly awaited days for our boarder: the gift box wrapping. A few days ago our boarders donated money to help bring joy and happiness to hundreds of kids in Eastern Europe. This is always one of the most awaited events in our community, as it allows our students to gather together for a good cause.

Haruka and her friends helped organize and buy all the items that were necessary to complete these boxes and Bruna participated in the wrapping today.

As you can see in the video, a few of our boarders reunited to help wrap all the gifts, make sure each box had the necessary elements, and, even more importantly, write a personalized letter to put inside each box.

To conclude with Respect Week at CDL, we asked Bruna, one of our Senior students in the house, to explain to us what the word “respect” means to her.

Respect. The act of respecting is one of the most profound displays of empathy an individual can have towards others and the environment. It extends to different cultures, customs, decisions, and even the environment you find yourself in, revealing its essential role in building a harmonious society. While seemingly simple, unfortunately, many people still struggle to respect the diverse realities beyond their own experiences. I emphasize the importance of opening the mind and seeing the world through empathetic eyes, understanding the rich tapestry of diverse personalities and opinions that shape our collective journey.

Recognizing and appreciating the world’s diversity not only fosters understanding but also enriches our interconnected society. In a world where people think and live differently, acknowledging and valuing these differences becomes a source of beauty and strength. The varied realities of the world are not only something to be celebrated but also serve as a fundamental support for a more vibrant and tolerant global community.

Bruna will be graduating from CDL in June; we are very proud to know she will take with her the CDL RISE values that she has been learning and acknowledging during her years with us.

On Friday we celebrated Bruna’s 17th anniversary!

It’s the first birthday we get to celebrate in the house and we couldn’t be more excited.

Dear Bruna, we wish you a year full of joy and great news, as well as achieving all of your dreams and aspirations.

Sundays are usually a quiet day. The girls like to get ready for Monday, do homework, and study for tests. But today is a different kind of Sunday as tomorrow they have no class. The house has been quiet for the whole day, as the girls have been taking it easy today.

As a motivation for the summatives coming soon, we decided to surprise them by baking some chocolate cookies!

Sofiya was the first one to try them and she said they tasted very good 🤩

The Saint Loup team

Tonight, as we do once per month, we reunited on our interior terrace to enjoy a delicious Spanish-inspired dinner. We had Paella with chicken, Bruschetta with tomato, and some traditional madeleines. At the end of the meal, we discussed the best breakfast options and why eating Nutella in the morning is a weird choice.

Fields arrived a bit later as she had her piano lessons in school, but we were having so much fun that we completly forgot to take a second picture 😥

Until next Dinner in the house ❤️

In this week’s Wellbeing session, we talked about Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.

As we know, the teenage years are a time of self-discovery (getting to know and understand who we are), but also exploring gender identity and sexual orientation. For us, as caregivers, it is crucial to create a healthy and supportive environment where our students can be themselves and express themselves freely.

To help them with their questions and fears, our group of advocates has created a safe platform where students can post their questions anonymously and they will answer them back. We hope this will help our students to feel more comfortable in our community.

The Saint Loup team

For last week’s challenge, the girls needed to record themself with their roommate and find similarities, either in their cultures, personalities, interests, etc.

Bruna (Brazilian) and Haruka (Japanese) talked about how they both like to sleep and as a result, their room is always really quiet; they also discovered that it’s really common in their countries to cook a lot of dishes with pasta! Who would have thought Italians had competition on who eats more pasta!

Akmaral and Sofiya (Kazakhstan) have a lot of points in common! They both love to draw, watch the same Russian shows, and much more. Have a look at their funny video and what they said in it 😊 .

Fields (United States of America) and Kseniia (Russia) have also a lot in common! they both like Drake’s music and to stay in the dark!

The girls had a lot of fun recording these videos and also got to know each other a bit better during the preparation of the recording.

As we can see, it doesn’t matter where we are from, we all can have things in common, even if we come from two continents opposite from each other.

The Saint Loup team

8 billion people are living in the world right now. There are no two similar persons and everyone has their uniqueness (unless you have an identical twin…).

Today we want to celebrate all the little things that make us unique and different by wearing odd socks! Each sock has a different personality, you can like classic socks, funny socks, or stripped socks.

Let’s celebrate diversity!

As usual, this weekend was full of different activities 🌸

First, Sofiya took a cooking class. She prepared delicious meatballs with semolina 🍴🍛 Look how proud she is !

Then Akmaral played tennis and, as you can see, she was very focused! She’s getting better and better 🎾

After these first two weeks back to school, Etoile decided to relax this weekend by stretching 🧘‍♀️

A bientôt !

The Saint Loup Team ❤️

Good evening everyone !

Fields, Bruna and Kseniia have just returned from their wonderful weekend at Europe’s biggest amusement park in Germany 

They had so much fun together and with their friends from other houses. They came back with their heads full of memories and are ready to face the week ahead. 💪

They also came back with two new friends! We are now 9 at Villa Saint Loup 9 😂

A bientôt !

The Saint Loup Team ❤️