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| Singapore Cultural Exchange |
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| To Singapore, With Love |
| Our students combine learning and pleasure at the Singapore Sunburst Youth Camp 2009 |
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| Be Indian sell Indian: A Cathedral student at the Indian Stall |
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An experience of a lifetime, an experience that is capable of crossing all regional borders to bring together so many young people from different countries, an experience that was both fantastic as well as enriching...That’s the SYC experience.
On the night of 5th December, eight of us (four students from Cathedral and four from BIS) along with the teacher from Bombay International, Mrs. Anjali Karpe left for Singapore, all of us eager to plunge headlong into what the camp would have to offer.
The two events for which we had prepared were: the cultural exhibition, commonly called the ‘Stall’, and a dance a live performance. Little did we know how many more activities were in store for us at Singapore, not to mention how many new friends we would make?
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Jai ho! The Mumbai team's dance performance was a huge success |
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On reaching Singapore airport, we were received by our ‘Ace’ who was in charge of us for the whole camp and some participants from Singapore. The first day was spent shopping, eating and going around the whole city, marveling at its numerous tourist attractions and its fantastic nightlife.
The day was jam-packed with a very tight schedule. On the first day we were assigned to our groups (all eight of us were in different groups with each group containing not more than one person from the 13 countries present).
The intention behind this was the same as having us share a room with two participants from two different countries- to allow us to interact with people from other delegations, share our views with them, and work as a cohesive team to sharpen skills like confidence, team-work, determination and leadership.
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| Global desis: The Cathedral and BIS contingent at the Sunburst Youth Camp in Singapore |
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To get to know each other, we were taken to a place called “Outward Bound Singapore” where along with our groups, we engaged in grueling tasks like rock-climbing, belaying and building real rafts and taking them out to sea in the evening. The night was spent around the bonfire, playing games and singing songs.
By the end of the day, all of us had blended in really well with everyone. Even our teacher, Mrs. Karpe, enjoyed interacting with the ‘Chaperones’, comprising all the other teachers (who were, like us, eagerly participating in all the activities). To get a glimpse at the university life at Singapore, we were taken to the NTU-NIE University and later to the famous Marina Barrage.
One of the highlights was however the ‘NEWS’ (North-East-West-South) Challenge, a competition among all the groups (Chaperones included) to visit the greatest number of sites and landmarks around the city in a stipulated amount of time to secure points. Running around in trains and walking from one place to another gave us a unique opportunity to see most of
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the city. Now, however came the advent of the sleepless nights with rigorous amount of work to be put in for the stall as well as rehearsing for the dance.
Our stall was a huge success, and received great praise from all the judges, although the host country, Singapore won the Best Stall award. Our dance however, featuring a sequence from the famous Oscar-winning song ‘Jai-Ho’ and episodes from the life of Krishna, was a great hit, with everyone in the auditorium chanting ‘Jai-Ho’.
All in all, the experience brought us all closer to one another, taught us important life skills, culminating in what can be called an absolutely fascinating and unforgettable experience
We would like to thank Mrs. Karpe for accompanying us for the trip and putting up with all of us for a whole week and Mrs. Shukla for all her help in organizing the initial meeting and for giving us an opportunity to have the ‘experience of a life-time’.
Finally, we are forever grateful to Mrs. Isaacs for providing us with such a wonderful opportunity, one that has completely changed us with a new-found appreciation and esteem for our cultural roots and an enthralling experience that we will forever cherish all our lives.
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