While summer vacations are all fun and games for teenagers, two sisters travelled from Qatar to Tanzania to make a difference in the lives of local students. In keeping with the spirit of community empowerment of American School of Doha (ASD), the two ASD students worked on a project to run an educational enrichment programme for local students, leading games and arts and crafts, as part of the Learning Service Programme.
ASD’s Learning Service Programme encourages all members, stakeholders and partners of the ASD community to reach out and become positive, active global citizens. In doing so, the ASD “typically strives to foster student initiated projects” with a focus on development, conservation or education. One of the ASD’s partner projects is the continuing expansion of the St Pius School in Arusha, Tanzania. ASD students Lama Ahmad and her sister Hana Sami travelled to Tanzania during ASD’s spring break service trip to that country and did their bit.
“This part of ASD’s project, which ran alongside a build to extend a classroom block at the school, was initiated and led by Ahmad and afforded participating students a chance to learn about education in Tanzania from the teachers and students at the St Pius School,” pointed out Chi-Yan Shang, IB CAS Co-ordinator, ASD, in an article he wrote as part of ASD’s in-house News, “St Pius serves students on the outskirts of Arusha where the next nearest school is a 10km walk away.”
Expressing happiness over how the programme is shaping up, Shang told Community, “We are really happy that what started as a trip to help build school rooms back in 2008 has evolved to now involve so many more pieces of the ASD community, growing from students to teachers to parents to the PTA and now to our corporate partners like Follett. I think it really shows how deeply rooted the idea of community service and community betterment is in the ASD mindset and that we really do try to practice what we teach. It’s also really great that this is a project we are supporting in the long term. So we are really focusing our efforts at St Pius and working with them to help deliver resources, training and infrastructure.”
Of the many requirements, a key need that was identified was that of books, outside of government-issued textbooks. The ASD students conducted an assessment of the school while on site, and found that there was no library building or librarian, so the decision was taken when they returned to ASD to try and fund classroom reading sets that could both be used for literacy instruction and independent reading. 
“Each year, the ASD Library hosts a used book sale with the proceeds going to support a library or literacy project somewhere in the developing world. This year, the ASD Library, under the direction of Head Librarian Linda Hoiseth, donated $1,000 to purchase culturally and linguistically appropriate readers to St Pius. Hoiseth and Sami curated the brand new books from Follett, a leading distributor for libraries and schools in the international arena. Follett in turn, fully sponsored the shipping costs of the books to Arusha where they arrived this August to classes of students eager to start school,” Shang explains in the article.
The ASD is hoping to further support this project by continuing its teacher training programme where an ASD teacher is sent to provide professional development training to St Pius staff.  In 2016, this was fully funded by the ASD Parent Teacher Association. It is the hope that in 2017, the ASD will be able to send a teacher-librarian to provide training that will facilitate the best use of the donated books in line with current best-practice in literacy instruction.
ASD is known for its wide range of activities through the year. In April, the school’s sixth graders celebrated their fifth annual Qatar History Day with a specific focus on the dynamic changes the country has experienced the past 20-30 years. 
The week-long event has become a mainstay at the ASD. In February, the 18th edition of the American School of Doha’s Friendship Festival brought in a grand celebration for kids, parents, teachers and the community at large. Every year, more than 4,000 people visit the festival in the five hours — 12pm to 5pm — it lasts.


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