6
EIS News
Adopt a
Camp
Campaign
Students from Emirates International
School-Jumeirah
recently
offered
a helping hand to the community...
they collected generous donations for
labourers in the UAE and personally
hand delivered them.
Living in the UAE
we see
building popping up all around us,
at lightning speed. But too often we
forget about the workers building them.
However, students at EIS, refused to
turn a blind eye.
‘Helping Hands’ is a student-led
afterschool organisation that was
initiated in September 2011 at EIS-
Jumeirah in order to inspire students
to put in their energy, innovation and
desire into “giving back” to society.
The student body at ‘Helping Hands’
believes in playing its role by raising
awareness, funds and manpower for
charitable or disease-cure research
organisations as well as creating an
opportunity for students to give back to
society in any way they can.
For weeks on end, students tirelessly
turned up to ‘Helping Hands’ meetings
and helped organize the ‘Adopt a Camp’
project. They collected donations from
students all over the school including
t-shirts, shaving kits, toothpaste, first
aid kits, deodorant, blankets and so
on. The response to the initiative was
overwhelming.
Philip Burgess, High School Principal,
EIS-Jumeirah said, “The initiative has
been a great success since inception. It
is great to see so many of our students
keen to help those in need.”
On the final day of the campaign they
gathered their donations and created
individual boxes for 300 labourers in the
UAE. Next stop: the labour camps. The
students boarded a bus and personally
hand-delivered their donations to the
labourers. As the bus pulled into the
camp, they were greeted by the many
smiling faces of the workers, who stood
patiently in line for their gifts and food
donations.
The Principal added, “For the students
to personally hand-deliver their
donations meant that actually got
to understand exactly where their
donations went, rather than what they
read in the newspapers or see on TV.”
Above all, the experience taught them
about the fundamentals of happiness
and that any form of action, no matter
how small or big will etch a mark in
society forever.
