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IN THE SPOTLIGHT
“Do Something!” Say Students at Lahore American School
By Tim Musgrove
To change a behavior, you have to change the attitude. To change the attitude, you have to change underlying beliefs. Beliefs? They start with the heart. As Cathryn Berger Kaye pointed out at a recent Near East South Asia (NESA) conference when discussing service learning opportunities, it’s the connection between the heart and the mind that makes a powerful learning experience. Like many international schools, we at Lahore American School (LAS) work very hard at living our mission to educate the whole child and help students engage in making positive contributions to their community. This is often easier said than done. It gets confusing at times. Students often ask, “Is it community service or service learning?” While we know that service learning involves a process, and connections to the curriculum are important, our Community Service and Leadership class has taken a slightly different approach in the last two years. To get students more engaged, they’ve put the labels of community service and service learning aside and instead have emphatically called upon our student body to “Do Something!” Students have been encouraged to find what they are passionate about, to look past the obstacles, and then follow their passion with the courage and conviction to support their community in any way that they are able. I’d like to share two stories. Mikaal had a deep, emotional connection behind the development of his website, MrBlood.pk. This is his story: “The day we found out Nani had cancer, we thought our problems would involve chemotherapy and hair loss. Little did I realize that my memories of my grandmother’s last days would be that of scrambling around Lahore, pleading with various friends and family members for a few liters of their blood. The hospital blood bank was always short or never had the right blood group, and it was left to us to find blood for my Nani before it was too late. In those last days, I realized just how difficult the task of finding blood was. Local blood banks had already donated their supplies to other hospitals. I checked online but found no functioning blood donation service whatsoever. While his service was too late to support his Nani, he recognized that lifesaving blood was a scarce commodity in Pakistan. It was not that people were unwilling to donate, they just didn’t have a means to do so. Mikaal spent months researching and developing his platform, as well as making connections with local blood banks and hospitals. Today, Mikaal’s non-profit organization, MrBlood.pk, provides a platform through which patients in need of blood and donors can connect. “One of our biggest challenges was increasing awareness,” Mikaal explains. Many families had no idea how to acquire clean blood when hospitals and blood banks were out of stock. Through careful planning, persistence, and appropriate advertising, the service is growing. “To date, we have 1000 donors registered, and currently, there are an average of about 30 donations a month.” The thought of another family member or friend being unable to receive blood inspired Mikaal’s project and provides recipients and donors all the necessary information to get connected and save lives. Ijaz’s contribution to the community may be considered straightforward in most countries, but if you are familiar with Pakistan you will know nothing is straightforward in the remote villages. “I felt compelled by what I witnessed on a trip to the northern areas of Pakistan,” recalls Ijaz. “Everywhere I went I saw children playing with toy guns. It was the only form of entertainment they had! Children walked about with little shiny plastic guns in hand playing catch, and they had no idea that their minds could be engaged with positive, creative ideas. This brought to my attention the ease with which people turn to firearms. I wanted to do something to change the mindset of this and future generations and expose them to other activities that they could use their energies on.” Schools in the FATA region were destroyed by the Taliban. The population in the area has been subjected to the worst form of fear. Guns ruled and school buildings became Taliban headquarters. Even though the army has since taken control of FATA and has driven the Taliban out, rebuilding the schools has been a slow and difficult task. After witnessing the aftermath, seeing children playing with guns, and speaking to the army officers now in charge, Ijaz felt compelled to do something. Led by his heart, Ijaz procured and installed computer equipment for two schools in the FATA region. With sustainability in mind, he even negotiated hardware maintenance agreements and internet access. Later, Ijaz returned to the region to personally conduct the student and teacher computer training. “I wanted to help, and the best way that I could think of was by helping schools educate more people, provide positive engagement, and make students aware of the global village they are in.” Other community projects such as building a water pump in a village, or installing filtered drinking water coolers in city slums are just a couple of projects LAS students are currently taking on. But in line with March For Our Lives, Never Again, and other recent initiatives, does it really matter whether we call it service learning or community service? It didn’t to the people impacted by our students’ initiatives. If our school’s mission is to cultivate empathetic and caring individuals, I find myself wondering if the best way to do this is to listen to our students, worry less about the labels, follow passion, and just do something. Tim Musgrove is Secondary Principal at Lahore American School in Pakistan.
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Comments
08/11/2018 - Mattie
A wonderful and inspiring article. Thanks for sharing.I hope many teachers will read this and share with their students and community.
