Round Square trip Conference in South Africa broadens world views


W


hen Brittney Ferreira visited a Primary school in South Africa last fall, as part of the International


Round Square Conference, she gained a new appreciation for how a little can mean a lot. Brittney explains that she was helping make collages, cutting out pictures from magazines: “We only had one pair of scissors and one stick of glue in my group and they all had to share it. None of them grew impatient or fussed over it. They all just sat there and they were just happy to watch their friend have the chance to use it. I thought that was really special because they found happiness in really simple things.” Brittney, who is in IB1, was one of four


Bermuda High School students who traveled to South Africa last September to fully experience one of the Round Square tenets of global citizenship. In some respects, it was familiar turf.


At BHS, which has been a Round Square School since 2005, these IDEALS are embraced every day.


“The school tries its best to constantly


remind the entire school community that these ideals represent the core values of our school,” explains Drew Sussman, BHS Head Boy, who also made the trip. “It’s become a priority to promote them and really make sure they’re understood.” Round Square is a worldwide association of more than 80 schools. Students at these schools commit themselves to community service, both at home and abroad, based on six ideals: internationalism, democracy, environment, adventure, leadership and service. Standards are tough and selection is limited. “There are so many schools queuing up to join," said Magan Singodia, a BHS teacher who also attended the trip to South Africa. Each year, schools select students to attend a five-day conference that explores the Round Square ideals a little more deeply. They do this through fellowship, study and adventure. For the BHS students --- who also included Kourtney Roberts, Y11, and Aoife Rynne, IB1 --- these adventures included river rafting, cave exploring and an improvised lesson on elephants. This year’s conference took place at Penryn College which is in northeastern South Africa. About 550 staff and students attended. For BHS, the trip also included a stay with the Roedean School in Johannesburg, another


“They had us stand under the elephant to take pictures. It was terrifying, but it was really cool.”


Round Square school.


As part of the fund-raising, students gathered items for the “support a stranger” project: a box filled with essential items such as soap, pencils and undergarments. When they got to South Africa, they painted a t-shirt to include in the box. The theme of this year’s conference was “no existence without coexistence.” Because of the South African setting, much of that discussion included living with animals, and the threat of poaching. Their visit included an overnight stay in Kruger National Park, a wildlife reserve. The students were divided into groups, or barazas, a Swahili word for meeting place. These barazas were made up of students from around the world. After every activity or conference speaker, the students got together to talk.


For the BHS delegates, the experience stretched beyond the conference. They also


Kourtney Roberts ‘15


observed a culture of contrast. “You’ve got both extremes there,” Brittney says. “You’ve got the really industrialised parts and you’ve got the areas where you see extreme poverty, only a couple of minutes away.”


But perhaps even more importantly, the students discovered what they had in common. Coming from Bermuda, they understand how impressions are deceiving. Not everyone in Bermuda, for example, lives on the beach. Aoife remembers the day her bus broke down on the way to an elephant ride. They had to improvise when the ride had to be cancelled.


“They had us stand under the elephant to take pictures,” she says. “It was terrifying, but it was really cool. Because when their ears flap it’s like all this wind and they makes noises and it’s really scary.”


In that hour of waiting in the hot sun, with no drinks and just each other to talk to, they found common ground. “We got to hang out with people we would never normally get to hang out with,” she says. “I actually made quite a few friends in that one hour.”


And that is the success of the Round Square IDEALS, getting students to go beyond what they normally do.


Torchbearer Spring 2013 15


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