Dear all,

Yesterday night we celebrated our Winter Dinner. In a beautiful environment, we enjoyed a very special dinner, where our girls looked stunning. It is a nice occasion to say goodbye to the year and relish last moments together before de Winter break.

Note: As we are considered as a family unit we don’t have to wear masks.

Dear all,

Yesterday’s weekly meeting was special: we celebrated our “Secret Santa” evening along with some awards for our girls. We also had been gifted a big chocolate Marmite for the yearly ‘escalade” event in Geneva.

What is a “Secret Santa” ?

In a group of people, names are drawn randomly so everyone has to find a gift for their pdesignated “Secret Santa”. On a designated day, everyone leaves the gifts under the tree and when opening your present, you have to guess who got it for you !

Awards in VDL

Nycol, Stacy, Nastya, Ana, Mila, Noor, Sophie.

What is the “Escalade” in Geneva ?

In 1602, French soldiers tried to invade the peaceful Swiss city of Geneva. The Genevans decided to fight back and organise a race against the French at night. They defended themselves with weapons and marmites full of hot water they threw on the ennemy’s heads !

Today (luckily), Genevans do not fight French people with boiling water. Every year there is a race and a fancy dress contest in the old town of Geneva to celebrate this event, and shops sell chocolate marmites of all sizes. This year, unfortunately, there is no Escalade race because of the COVID measures.

Dear all,

As part of their wellbeing pillar 2, Victoria and Gabriela decided to write their own articles about diversity for this blog !

Victoria listened to a podcast and wrote a reflection about it.

Gabriela decided to write about diversity and inclusion, and what it means here, in the CDL community.

Congratulations, girls, and thank you !

Dear all,

Another great week-end in CDL ! We even had snow on Friday 🙂

On Friday, we participated in the “Light for hope” action, to pay tribute to the ones who lost their lives in the Beirut explosion on August 4th.

Among other activities, we had: bootcamp, yoga, photography, tennis, biking, beauty club, story club, chess club…

Mila in the bootcamp !

We have invited 3 boys from the Concha house to join us for our Pizza party on Saturday evening. It was lovely !

Dear all,

Here are some of the wellbeing projects proposed by Amalia and Olga K. We also had presentations from Sophie, Betty, Alina, Emilia, Valentina, and Wakana, and Noor & Dalia decorated the house with flags they have drawn to represent all the nationalities in VDL !

Poster by Amalia

Poster and reflection of an article made by Olga K

Dear all,

Yesterday was our weekly house assembly. We discussed non-violent communication thanks to a video made by Miss Jody, our boarding counsellor. Lisa and Sophie showed us a video about bullying called “Why I bully you” – explaining what’s in a bully’s mind. As part of their wellbeing project. Emilia, Valentina and Wakana created a Kahoot quizz competition about diversity in the house. The competition was funny and we laughed a lot !

Dear all,

Christmas is here and we are ready to celebrate! The house has been decorated by our girls and we have a beautiful environment. We are feeling jolly and the Christmas spirit is felt everywhere on campus.

Dear all,

During this week we are participating in the Partage, in collaboration with Geneva’s food bank. Last weekend some of our girls volunteered to collect products in the supermarket from the customers. We are very proud of the work they did! During this week in the School, we are collecting several boxes with the idea of fighting against hunger and food waste. Well done!

Dear all,

Tonight was thanksgiving dinner ! The dining hall committee members decorated the dining hall with our residential house parent, Lucélia. We ate stuffed turkey with gravy, mashed potatoes, broccolis, corn, cookies and an apple pie. It was delicious and it was so pleasant to be all houses together. We are thankful to each and every one of the student and staff who attended this special evening !

Dear all,

As every Wednesday, we had our house meeting. This time, Betty and Alina, as part of their Wellbeing project, made a presentation against bullying. They worked hard and it was very informative. Congrats, girls !

We also drew names for the Secret Santa, because Christmas is fast approaching ! We watched the MADS video made by our students from the Make a Difference Society. We mentioned the Ski weekends for 2021 and the upcoming Thanksgiving dinner.