COMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING PROJECT

South Asia Education Fund is a service learning project that we have undertaken at our school, Chiang Mai International School (CMIS) in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  Service Learning at CMIS seeks to combine the two foundational elements of the CMIS vision: responsible global citizenship (service) and courageous learners (learning) into an engaging experience for the mutual benefit of students and the wider community.    Every student at CMIS must be involved in service learning activities for a minimum number of hours in order to graduate. Typically, service learning opportunities for students are created through a variety of different avenues (i.e. through the classroom, student clubs, student interest, community need, etc.) and are mainly student driven with adult input and support.  The service learning experience is designed to get students to actively participate in the community as they learn how to be responsible, global citizens.  We established our own project/club by leveraging the NGO and business parent network at our school which helped us think big and to realize that we could create an international project with real potential impact.