On Friday May 25, YCIS Chongqing organized our first annual Celebrating Differences event. We invited parents and members of the community to join us in this sharing of learning and act of togetherness.

This event was intended to draw attention to, and acknowledge, inherent differences across the community, including the areas of mental health, behavior and emotions, processing and physical challenges. Students from ECE to Year 10 had engaged in exploration and experimental tasks to increase their knowledge and awareness of these areas. Students participated in activities intended to develop empathy through experience by temporarily placing them in the role of a special needs individual. Students also had the chance to share their learning with other year groups and sections of the school by delivering lessons to each other, and creating display boards designed around their new areas of expertise.

We had special Celebrate Differences t-shirts created for this event. Purchase of a t-shirt will support our efforts with local Special Needs schools as well as the YCEF Seeds of Hope Charity, and permit students and staff to ‘dress down’ for the day.

Our guests from our partner local special needs school joined us for a morning of lessons with our students. The open part of the day started at 12:10pm, at which time our Secondary Students were invited to tour the learning displays and participate in designed activities. At 1pm, our Primary Students had their chance to learn and participate. Following this, at 1:50pm, all members of the school community joined us at the track for a walk-a-thon intended to increase awareness of our differences, and participants from a variety of backgrounds and ages.

Our guests had a wonderful morning of fantastic lessons, and the whole school enjoyed the socializing, making friends, juice and cookies as well as the walk. We hope the event left an impression in the spirit of the intent, and created some great memories and awareness of the differences our world can present.

Congrats to the whole community for buying over 300 CD T-Shirts to support our charity initiatives, we look forward to another successful event next year!