Life on Land
A celebration of Service in Action at Swiss International School Qatar.
A celebration of Service in Action at Swiss International School Qatar.
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MYP Service in Acti<strong>on</strong> - May 2022<br />
<str<strong>on</strong>g>Life</str<strong>on</strong>g> <strong>on</strong> <strong>Land</strong>
Planting Future Leaders<br />
Kofi Annan argued that young people need to be “active<br />
architects” in building our future societies.<br />
At SISQ, our young leaders are prepared to make a<br />
difference and they are ready to inspire those around them.<br />
This issue celebrates the creati<strong>on</strong> of our Quranic medical<br />
garden; an amazing partnership with the Nati<strong>on</strong>al Museums<br />
and some w<strong>on</strong>derful displays of artistic talent.<br />
In classes like MFL, Design and Tech, ISQH and Culture<br />
Studies, young leaders are taking acti<strong>on</strong> to protect <str<strong>on</strong>g>Life</str<strong>on</strong>g> <strong>on</strong><br />
<strong>Land</strong> and <str<strong>on</strong>g>Life</str<strong>on</strong>g> Under Water.<br />
More importantly, they have been joined by our youngest<br />
students who have been planting, drawing and even sewing.<br />
We are also delighted that so many parents have been<br />
offering help and support.<br />
And we are especially proud of the<br />
support that we have received from HE<br />
Sheikha Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa<br />
Al Thani who sent handwritten letters to<br />
our young leaders to encourage them to<br />
c<strong>on</strong>tinue their hard work.<br />
2
Meet our partners<br />
It takes a village to grow a leader<br />
Quranic Gardens<br />
(Qatar Foundati<strong>on</strong>)<br />
Nati<strong>on</strong>al Museums<br />
Qatar<br />
Qatar Animal Welfare<br />
Society<br />
Wa’hab Qatar<br />
3
Medical Treasures<br />
Looking at these pictures, it is hard to imagine that<br />
this tiny garden paradise was just lifeless sand.<br />
The students used permaculture to create a haven for<br />
biodiversity so you can imagine their delight when<br />
they discovered their very own EARTHWORMS who<br />
were living happily in the soil that they had been<br />
carefully enriching.<br />
Last year, we planted herbs and trees to attract<br />
pollinators and this year, we received a very generous<br />
sp<strong>on</strong>sorship from Quranic Gardens in Qatar.<br />
Medical Mysteries<br />
The Quranic Gardens sp<strong>on</strong>sored us to have a medical<br />
garden!<br />
Our students are now growing henna, sidra, olives,<br />
figs, citr<strong>on</strong>, We also have miswak trees and we will<br />
so<strong>on</strong> be releasing an <strong>on</strong>line textbook of all the uses<br />
and benefits of these plants.<br />
4
Small Voices<br />
Make a Big<br />
Impact<br />
On 31 March, our grade 7 GSL students<br />
presented their service in acti<strong>on</strong> projects<br />
to HE Sheikha Mayassa bint Hamad bin<br />
Khalifa Al Thani and HE Buthaina Bint Ali<br />
Al Jabra al Nuaimi (the minister of<br />
educati<strong>on</strong> for Qatar).<br />
Imagine our delight when we received a<br />
handwritten letter from Sheikha Mayassa<br />
to praise us for our passi<strong>on</strong>. In the<br />
following article, the students discuss<br />
their project in their own words…<br />
5
Last year, we spent 171 hours <strong>on</strong> our<br />
Hummingbird Garden and we managed to<br />
educate more than 6000 people about the<br />
importance of biodiversity and ethical food<br />
producti<strong>on</strong> (life <strong>on</strong> land).We were struggling<br />
with Covid restricti<strong>on</strong>s so imagine our shock<br />
when, 6 m<strong>on</strong>ths later, our little 10m by 5m<br />
garden was being featured in The Gulf Times<br />
and Marhaba Magazine (readership of 15000)<br />
and we were being partnered and mentored by<br />
the oldest organic farm in Qatar! This was<br />
possible because of partnerships with<br />
businesses so we decided to focus <strong>on</strong><br />
“Partnerships for the Goal'' so that we could<br />
learn more and actively protect the biodiversity<br />
in this desert nati<strong>on</strong>.<br />
In additi<strong>on</strong>,we got to assist 5 classes of kindergarteners in<br />
making their own garden. While they watched bees<br />
pollinating their courgettes, it inspired them to feel<br />
passi<strong>on</strong>ate about gardening and creating a good impact <strong>on</strong><br />
the planet. This activity will c<strong>on</strong>tinue next year and the<br />
school board has allocated 40,000 QAR (11,000 USD) for us<br />
to develop the gardening educati<strong>on</strong> for next year<br />
Over our sec<strong>on</strong>d year of doing this GSL<br />
project, most of the time, we were gardening.<br />
When we came back to school after being<br />
<strong>on</strong>line, we busied ourselves with pulling out<br />
weeds and planting more plants as we wanted<br />
to have a Quranic garden. We even created a<br />
list of the people who are open to volunteering<br />
to water the garden.<br />
.<br />
Ayaan, Soundus and Ghanim addressing educati<strong>on</strong>al leaders.<br />
6
Prepared to Shine<br />
The Quranic gardens d<strong>on</strong>ated a medical garden for us to<br />
have an outdoor class. We are currently growing and<br />
educating our community about the medical importance of<br />
biodiverse plants such as: miswak, frankinscence, sidra,<br />
henna, figs, olives and citr<strong>on</strong> trees. These plants were used<br />
for centuries by bedouins and are currently being<br />
researched as a cure for drug resistant bacteria.The<br />
Quranic gardens has agreed to sp<strong>on</strong>sor every school in<br />
Doha to have a garden similar to ours. This was <strong>on</strong>e of the<br />
biggest partnerships we’ve had so far through our journey.<br />
They have promised us additi<strong>on</strong>al d<strong>on</strong>ati<strong>on</strong>s of<br />
bougainvillea trees and we returned their generosity by<br />
marketing their work to every school in Doha.<br />
Last year, our projects were based in ISQH less<strong>on</strong>s and<br />
published <strong>on</strong>line with over 500 readers. This year, French<br />
mother t<strong>on</strong>gue c<strong>on</strong>tinued the learning and expanded the<br />
project to three grade levels.<br />
Qatar Nati<strong>on</strong>al Museums invited teachers to create less<strong>on</strong><br />
plans to teach other schools about an important aspect of<br />
Qatar. We were the <strong>on</strong>ly children to volunteer and we<br />
worked with museum staff to create a “week without walls”<br />
biodiversity project where children throughout Qatar could<br />
create a fully sp<strong>on</strong>sored biodiversity garden and learn more<br />
about bedouin medical traditi<strong>on</strong>s and the importance of<br />
preserving our green heritage. By creating their own soap<br />
products, they would also reduce 1,2 billi<strong>on</strong> items of waste<br />
from cosmetic use. We could really make a difference!<br />
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A proud moment<br />
Our project was so successful that we got to tell our story to<br />
over 200 heads of school in Qatar and the minister of<br />
educati<strong>on</strong> (HE Buthaina Bint Ali Al Jabr Al Nuaimi). We were<br />
able to share our less<strong>on</strong> plans and inform them that every<br />
school in Doha had sp<strong>on</strong>sorship for a medical garden. We<br />
also presented to the director of museums Sheikha Mayassa<br />
Al Thani who features regularly <strong>on</strong> the list of top 100 people<br />
for Forbes and Times Magazine. She is also the sister of our<br />
country’s ruler. Sheikha Mayassa retweeted our story <strong>on</strong> her<br />
pers<strong>on</strong>al Twitter and Facebook where she has a following of<br />
over 500 000. We were also delighted to receive handwritten<br />
letters to let us know that our “passi<strong>on</strong> for sustainability was<br />
truly inspiring”. She also menti<strong>on</strong>ed that she is “looking<br />
forward to hearing more about our botanical projects”.<br />
C<strong>on</strong>gratulati<strong>on</strong>s to Soundus , Ghanim, Ayaan,<br />
Nathalie, Adwita, Jana and S<strong>on</strong>am for bringing the<br />
hummingbirds to life.<br />
A special thank you to Miss Roweida Bawab and<br />
Dr Jelena Trkulja from Qatar Nati<strong>on</strong>al Museums for<br />
supporting our young speakers.<br />
We asked Sheikha Mayassa if we could use the museums<br />
as a platform to create a biodiversity research magazine for<br />
children by children and she invited us to join a newly<br />
formed teenage acti<strong>on</strong> group from all over Qatar where we<br />
can launch our project nati<strong>on</strong>wide under the patr<strong>on</strong>age of<br />
Qatar Foundati<strong>on</strong> and Qatar Nati<strong>on</strong>al Museums.<br />
The hard work will c<strong>on</strong>tinue next year and we are excited to<br />
no l<strong>on</strong>ger have covid restricti<strong>on</strong>s.<br />
If you are interested in supporting the gardening activities at<br />
SISQ through d<strong>on</strong>ati<strong>on</strong>s or skills c<strong>on</strong>tributi<strong>on</strong>s, please c<strong>on</strong>tact<br />
Claire Olivier at colivier@sisq.qa<br />
8
Changing Lives<br />
“Whoever is kind to the<br />
creatures of God is kind to<br />
himself”<br />
Hadith Bukhari<br />
9
There are many reas<strong>on</strong>s why people<br />
aband<strong>on</strong> animals. Firstly, a pet can<br />
have behavioral issues such as<br />
biting and barking. It is a lot of<br />
resp<strong>on</strong>sibility to train the pet, clean<br />
it, feed it, etc. Apart from this,<br />
humans have lifestyle changes such<br />
as a new child’s birth, a change of<br />
residence, or a job offer in another<br />
country. This can also include<br />
holidays and traveling. How will you<br />
take the pet somewhere else?<br />
Having a pet is expensive and<br />
requires a lot of hard work! 90% of<br />
Qatar’s residents are expats and<br />
this would explain why so many<br />
animals are aband<strong>on</strong>ed. These<br />
animals are so traumatised that they<br />
might never be adopted again.<br />
The penalty for abuse is <strong>on</strong>ly two<br />
weeks in jail or a fine of two<br />
thousand QR. Compared to many<br />
other countries, Qatar’s laws for<br />
animal cruelty are not enough.! In<br />
Greece the government has said<br />
that whoever abuses an animal will<br />
be sent to pris<strong>on</strong> for 10 years and<br />
pay a fine of 5,000 - 15,000 Euros. In<br />
Germany you pay €25,000 or<br />
impris<strong>on</strong>ment of 3 years and in<br />
countries like Georgia, it is against<br />
the law to aband<strong>on</strong> a domestic<br />
animal. The shocking thing is that<br />
animal abuse is a grave sin in Islam<br />
but many muslims d<strong>on</strong>’t know this.<br />
This is why we made a display <strong>on</strong><br />
animal rights in Islam.we talked<br />
about what the rules are and why<br />
they are there to keep us and<br />
animals safe. The Quran protects all<br />
living creatures.But still this does<br />
not stop people from aband<strong>on</strong>ing<br />
them <strong>on</strong> the<br />
street to die<br />
or injuring<br />
them because<br />
people d<strong>on</strong>’t<br />
know the<br />
rules. We also<br />
decided, as a<br />
group, to<br />
make posters<br />
for the stray<br />
cats and dogs<br />
in QAWS. We<br />
knew and<br />
understood<br />
that the problem was big and<br />
therefore, we had passi<strong>on</strong> to take<br />
acti<strong>on</strong>. Kyan and Enrique went to<br />
the Qaws website and searched for<br />
info <strong>on</strong> the dogs and cats that<br />
needed to be adopted.Isabella and<br />
Sabine made posters of the animals<br />
they rescued. We were delighted<br />
when the kindergarten did less<strong>on</strong>s<br />
using our display and drew pictures<br />
of the animals to make their own<br />
display.<br />
10
Hands <strong>on</strong> Help<br />
Toy making was the most important part of our acti<strong>on</strong><br />
as we had to listen to the problem and use our critical<br />
thinking with the informati<strong>on</strong> we already knew. We<br />
would not want to hurt the animals with good<br />
intenti<strong>on</strong>s without knowing the facts. One of our<br />
teammates, Arianna, visited the shelter and<br />
interviewed them <strong>on</strong> how we could help them and the<br />
animals. It turns out, many of the cats at the shelter<br />
were dealing with unhealthy emoti<strong>on</strong>al damage<br />
because of aband<strong>on</strong>ment and cruelty. Janet Berry, the<br />
owner of QAWS, kindly requested soft and cuddly<br />
toys for the cats to help them deal with their<br />
emoti<strong>on</strong>al health and a doggy playground so families<br />
could b<strong>on</strong>d with future animals and see how they<br />
interact with young children. The very first step was<br />
creating a moodboard to help spark our ideas. Most<br />
of our supplies were from ‘old, orphaned’ socks and<br />
old shirts. Each kid in our class produced at least <strong>on</strong>e<br />
cat toy, keeping in mind about the durability of the<br />
toys and the safety as aband<strong>on</strong>ed cats tend to chew<br />
<strong>on</strong> everything. We tested our toys <strong>on</strong> street cats or<br />
our cats at home, by this we could see if the stitches<br />
needed to be str<strong>on</strong>ger or the fabric was too soft and<br />
was able to be ripped. If the toys failed their test, we<br />
would have to redo them or make a new <strong>on</strong>e as we<br />
did not want to harm or even kill them.<br />
11
During our time of prototyping, we experienced: failure, acceptance, ethical<br />
thinking and most of all pleasure with our work and pride in the difference<br />
we had made in this world<br />
At the same time, the grade 10s created a puppy playground and cat<br />
exercise centre for us. They spent an entire term researching the animals’<br />
needs and building the equipment from recycled wood as many aband<strong>on</strong>ed<br />
animals are under stimulated and depressed. The playground allows<br />
traumatised animals to reb<strong>on</strong>d with humans and their future animal<br />
siblings.<br />
When we went, we took the dogs to the puppy playground and let them test<br />
it out whilst bribing them with treats. On the other hand, when we gave the<br />
cats their little plush toys they didn't need to be bribed - they just went<br />
straight into the bag and grabbed some toys themselves<br />
Our deepest gratitude to Dr Sophie Peralba<br />
for the excellent work she does to rescue<br />
cats. <br />
We also thank all the moms and dads.<br />
This project would not have been possible<br />
without the passi<strong>on</strong> and expertise of the<br />
Design and Technology department. It gives<br />
us great pleasure to showcase some of the<br />
excepti<strong>on</strong>al grade 10 projects in the next<br />
few pages…<br />
We were delighted to receive an official thank you from QAWS who<br />
published this statement <strong>on</strong> their official page: “ From cat scratch posts to<br />
bird houses to dog bridges, a truck full of fun play equipment arrived at the<br />
shelter much to the delight of our animals! Al<strong>on</strong>g with all the cat hidey holes<br />
and climbers, our Kitties also got stacks of the cutest handmade toys too!!<br />
We are so impressed with the pieces d<strong>on</strong>ated and so very grateful we were<br />
made their project for the term! Our dogs have already been testing out<br />
their new activity pieces in the off-lead run and they were a huge success.<br />
Our school leadership has approved a budget for us to c<strong>on</strong>tinue next year<br />
to create more toys, exercise equipment and wooden signs and the project<br />
is now part of the curriculum for DT, Art and Culture Studies so we truly<br />
transform the lives of over 300 animals. We already engaged over 300<br />
students and we spent nearly 3000 hours <strong>on</strong> this project.<br />
Our youngest member was just 4 years old.<br />
12
13
14
15<br />
Well d<strong>on</strong>e to the grade 6 GSL<br />
team and the grade 6 Culture<br />
Studies class. We also<br />
c<strong>on</strong>gratulate the following<br />
grade 10s <strong>on</strong> excellent<br />
projects:<br />
Claire<br />
Aya<br />
Vasil<br />
Emma<br />
Ali <br />
Ghalia <br />
Jhanae <br />
Mariam<br />
Mohamad <br />
Lalique<br />
Taha <br />
Yessine
If any members of our community<br />
would like to help create furniture and<br />
play equipment for abused animals (or<br />
if you would like to d<strong>on</strong>ate supplies)<br />
please c<strong>on</strong>tact Claire <strong>on</strong><br />
colivier@sisq.qa.<br />
We are especially grateful for wood,<br />
sisal rope and animal friendly paints<br />
and varnish.<br />
16
Turtle Hatching<br />
On the 12 May, our<br />
school will be allowed to<br />
send 3 delegates to the<br />
turtle nesting program in<br />
Fuwairit. Only 12<br />
members of the public<br />
are allowed to attend.<br />
Furthermore, our<br />
talented Hailey in grade<br />
9 will be having an<br />
exclusive interview with<br />
the staff at the facility<br />
due to her amazing<br />
research project to<br />
preserve marine life in<br />
Qatar.<br />
A beautiful turtle created by Hailey Tynes in grade 9.<br />
If you wish to support Hailey in her project to<br />
support marine life, please come to our spring fair<br />
and purchase her amazing clay animals.<br />
17
18
Composting<br />
A massive thank you to Mr<br />
Wils<strong>on</strong> and 7B for helping to get<br />
the composting going! <br />
The composting initiative was<br />
started by the “Fume Buster”<br />
team and we are currently<br />
composting food waste in grade<br />
7 and grade 6.<br />
If you are interested in<br />
composting your own food<br />
waste then please c<strong>on</strong>tact<br />
www.wahab.qa for the best<br />
compost bins for home use.<br />
19
Watering the next<br />
generati<strong>on</strong><br />
Our GSL teams were very privileged<br />
to assist the early years children to<br />
develop their own biodiversity<br />
gardens.<br />
The Creepy Critters went the extra<br />
mile and helped create the gnome<br />
belts so that each child could be an<br />
eco guardian and protect bees,<br />
worms and other important creatures.<br />
We can all learn a lot from the love<br />
and diligence shown by our youngest<br />
members of the SISQ family.<br />
20
Final Words of<br />
Gratitude<br />
It take a village to raise a child<br />
Mrs Susanna G<strong>on</strong>calves for financial<br />
guidance and logistical support<br />
Mr Sam Gath<strong>on</strong>i for transporting plants<br />
and furniture<br />
Mr Giuseppe Paolillo for all the practical<br />
arrangements<br />
Our amazing cleaning and support staff<br />
21