Scholars enhance UWC life - United World College of South East Asia

Dunia, April 2010
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Cheshire Homes Visit
We recently had the pleasure of visiting a home for severely disabled adults called
‘Cheshire Home’. One of our goals was to gain insight into Upper School student
involvement in local service and to find out about the challenges of communicating with
people who have disabilities. Take John (pictured), a resident at the home, who understands
English, but is unable to speak; he is able to make his wishes understood through
a series of facial expressions and nods. Through trial and error, we eventually managed
to help him water his beloved plants in the back garden! John was encouraging and constantly
had a smile on his face, making helping and talking to him all the more rewarding.
Here are the thoughts of some of the Grade 9 students we spoke to:
“It’s a great experience working with these people because it gives me such gratification
to know that I am making a difference” and “In my previous schools we never had
the opportunity to work with disabled people so I found it interesting and felt a sense of
achievement after seeing them smile”
Our visit to Cheshire Home is one that we will treasure forever because to walk into a
room and have so many faces smiling at you is truly a once in a lifetime experience.
Talking to all the students that regularly visit the home showed us how much the students
enjoy it because not only does it make the people happy but it makes the students
happy because even doing some small act kindness like watering plants makes them
feel like they have made a difference. This truly was a pleasurable and heartwarming
experience and we hope that we can go back to Cheshire Home again.
Danielle Iserlis (10JLC), Ambika Chanrai (10DWi) and Yuka Shimizu (10JLC) - Service Initiative
Awareness Group
Dutch trip to Melaka
The time to leave to Melaka had finally
come for us, the Dutch students of Grade
9 and 10. There were nine of us - seven
students, our teacher and a parent on a
weekend to study the Dutch cultural heritage
in a town occupied by the Dutch from
1641 to 1825.
Welcomed by a big billboard “Selamat
datang ke Melaka”, we drove into the
town and our attention was immediately
drawn to the brilliant red buildings, many
of them built by the Dutch, including the
Stadthuys and Christ Church.
After checking into our hotel, we had
a very satisfying meal, then roamed
through Melaka’s night market. The next
day, we went on the ‘Dutch trail’, a trail
leading to old sites built or influenced by
the Dutch. Our first stop was Saint Paul’s
church built by the Portuguese but later
turned into a Protestant church, where we
located and analyzed gravestones with
Dutch inscriptions. We continued our walk
to the Porta de Santiago, originally built
in S-shape by the Portuguese to avoid
direct cannon fire. After the Dutch conquered
Melaka from the Portuguese in
1641, they added the year ‘1660’ on the
Photo by Elly Kreijkes
gate as well as the symbol of the VOC,
the ‘Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
(United East Indies Company).
As we walked on, we passed the Dutch
cemetery for high-ranking VOC officers
and their families, and we also found
British gravestones from the 19 th century.
There were about 30 graves in total, and
it was our “job” to find a particular one of
a Dutch woman. Fortunately we did have
a map. Then we visited the most interesting
site of all, the Stadthuys, which was
once the residence of the Dutch gover-
nor, and has now been transformed into a
museum. Inside we could see how people
lived a couple of centuries ago, and how
the drainage system was built from the
house to the Melaka River. Our last stop
before lunch was Christ Church, built by
the Dutch in 1741, to commemorate 100
years of their presence in Melaka.
After a short rest, we visited 8 Heeren
Street, a house built by the Dutch and recently
restored with the help of the Dutch
Government. Our tour guide mentioned
that the Dutch were masters at building
houses that were strong and durable, and
they knew how to vary the height of the
houses to combat fires that could easily
destroy whole streets.
The Melaka trip was fun and interesting,
and I believe that Dutch students
will enjoy this trip in the future, as we
learn about our country’s influence in
Asia and how layers of different cultures,
Portuguese, Dutch, British, Chinese and
Malaysian, are intertwined.
Michiel Vriens