Service Learning

Service Learning >> New ‘Goals’ For UNIS Hanoi’s Service Learning Scheme

assess the effectiveness of its programmes. He continued, “We make Service a core part of the Middle and High School experience. There isn’t an opt out. But it’s just not enough to have kids in clubs or groups, we want to make sure that the programmes they are involved in are making a difference in Vietnam and the right kind of difference. As a UN connected school, it was organic to link our service initiatives with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. They are an excellent set of targets to motivate the students with.”

At the beginning of the school year, students in grades six to 12 received a handbook detailing each service learning programme and the specific SDGs they relate to. For example, the Swim for Life programme links to SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing and SDG 4 Quality Education. New for this year is the Cycle for Change programme which hopes to address SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing, SDG 4 Quality Education, SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG 13 Climate Action. And the Feminist Photography Foundation will seek to focus on SDG 1 No Poverty, SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities and SDG 5 Gender Equality.

With these strong links made at the very start, students and their teachers will be able to better gauge the true impact of their activities over the year. “We want students to question whether they actually reduced poverty, promoted quality education or gender equality, or good health and wellbeing which are just some of the Goals for a number of the projects” said Mr Campbell. “What we are doing is setting ourselves up to a higher standard.”

UNIS Hanoi Student teaching swimming skills to a Swim for Life participant The United Nations International School Hanoi (UNIS Hanoi) is taking a new approach to measuring the effectiveness of its IB Service Learning programmes by linking them with the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For the first time, the School has connected each of its 39 service projects to the most relevant Sustainable Development Goals. The ‘ambitious’ method means that every project intends to make a real longlasting impact, while guided by specific Goals such as no poverty, gender equality, good health and wellbeing or quality education, to name but a few. The SDGlinked service learning programmes is just one way the United Nations affiliated school in Hanoi is embedding UN principles and values into the curriculum. The Middle and High school units of inquiry have also been revamped to better reflect UN aspirations. The move comes as UN appointed Board Member, Ms Claire Montgomery called on all faculty to commit to sharing learning experiences that exemplify the work of the UN, in particular the drive towards achieving the SDGs by 2030. She said, “As our students progress through the school, the Sustainable Development Agenda can serve as a reminder of the highest ambitions of international cooperation. We look forward to a more peaceful, equitable and just world by 2030, and we hope our students feel equipped to contribute to this ambitious agenda.” Established in 1988, UNIS Hanoi is one of only two United Nations (UN) schools in the world. The school, founded on UN ideals and principles offers the IB program to more than 1,000 students from over 60 different countries. By Akofa Wallace Institutional Storyteller, UNIS Hanoi

The brainchild behind the initiative is UNIS Hanoi’s Middle and High School Service Learning Coordinator, Colin Campbell. He says he hopes the SDGs will become a ‘vocabulary’ for the School to use in order to