This week, YCIS Qingdao Secondary students stepped out of the classroom and into the community—bringing laughter to lonely seniors, sharing moments of creativity with special needs children, and protecting our blue planet along the coastline. During Service Learning Week, our students extended care through action, measuring the impact of kindness one step at a time. True holistic education reveals itself in every act of giving and every moment of empathy.

Take a look at their heartwarming journey!

Y7 Philip & Jayden

This year’s Service Learning Week, we visited a nursing home in Huangdao to experience caring for the elderly and engage with them through a variety of activities. We prepared board games together as a class and bought DIY lanterns, creating a fun and interactive atmosphere. Some classmates also performed songs and dances, which were so moving that they inspired the residents to join in and sing along. It was a heartwarming experience that fostered connections and brought joy to everyone involved.

Year 8 Cindy

This week is our Service Learning Week and the place we're heading to is the Cambridge school. This is a specialised school, and during this activity, our main tasks are helping the teachers to clean different areas of the school and having the chance to enter their classes and help special children. This is our second time going out of the school and going to another community to help. We helped clean the assigned areas and arrange the books, and also helped manage the kids. From this service activity, we have learned a lot about learning the special children's unique aspects and also practising our determination.

Year 9 Caedence

This Service Learning Week truly was an amazing experience. On Monday, we took a bus over to a school for deaf students in Qingdao. We were all seated in an auditorium, one student from our school sitting next to a student from their school, alternating every other. We sat through a presentation about the ear and causes of deafness, and then we were allowed to make magic clay flowers with the student from the deaf school next to us. The student next to me was pleasant and cheerful, teaching me sign language and overall acting surprisingly, well, normal. 

It was interesting to me to see how similar the students from their school were to ours. The only difference is their disability, other than that, they’re just normal kids like me. This helped me erase some of the misconceptions I had had about people with disabilities, helped further along by the experience we shared with them on Tuesday, which was building a straw tower. Once again, very normal interactions. This week really helped me shape my global perspectives for the better. It was an unforgettable experience.

Year 10 Cathy

Year 10 students have actively contributed to serving the community through their visit to Jiao Nan Library in Qingdao. During our visit, we achieved several meaningful outcomes. First, after discussions with the library owner, we identified ways to support the library in the future. These include organising activities during future visits, such as games for students who visit the library, teaching English, and donating books. All students agreed enthusiastically with these ideas. Additionally, the students helped clean and organise the library. On Monday, June 16th, we cleaned the second floor, labelling the shelves and arranging books systematically. On the following day, we worked together to clean the third floor. After completing the cleaning tasks on both days, the students enjoyed watermelon together, which we found to be a delicious reward for hard work.

Year 11

The year 11 students invested their creativity and energy to work on our roof top garden area. They continued to beautify the area through murals as well as creating additional learning spaces!

Beach Clean-up Day

On Wednesday, the students had a wonderful time giving back to our community by cleaning up Huangdao’s coastline. The teachers and students braved the heat and spent a few hours cleaning up rubbish along the shore to help keep our environment beautiful and to help the wildlife and ecosystems here to be just a bit healthier. The students were able to end the day with some fun at the beach, and on Friday, they spent time reflecting on how they were able to help. They are challenged to reflect on how service projects like the one they did not only help our community but how they also help them to have a better mindset as caretakers of our beautiful part of the world.