2021 Year 12 Lasallian Leadership Camp in August

2021 Year 12 Lasallian Leadership Camp from 16 to 18 August 2021

In layman terms, a Lasallian is someone who is following in the footsteps of St. John Baptist De La Salle whose life philosophy was to serve the Last, the Lost, the Least. Throughout this camp we understood more deeply what the Lasallian values are, and how we should live them out. We started off with ice breakers, which helped us build a stronger sense of community. We then moved on to learning about the life of St. John Baptist De Lasalle, where we learnt of the importance of faith in our lives. Lastly we had the opportunity of meeting, through Zoom, the boys from Rumah Pengajian Xavier, where we were given the chance to explore the significance of service. Rumah Pengajian Xavier is an education cum boarding school, sponsored by the society of St. Vincent de Paul, in PJ. The home takes in boys from economically deprived families and besides education, character development is emphasized. It was a great experience for us SJI students to meet with them.

“The overseas Lasallian camp carried out in previous years was highly anticipated by all new Y12s. The thought of making memories with our peers was exhilarating. Unfortunately, what could have been a week-long adventure turned out to be a three day online camp. However, as I reflected on the camp, there were so many learning points I drew out, including embodying the values of a Lasallian.

The camp helped me to cultivate my civic virtues of community awareness and to practise humility by putting myself in others’ shoes. We had the privilege of meeting the boys from RPX and through this experience I have gained a deeper appreciation of opportunities like that. Not only did we make new friends, their tenacity for life was an inspiration to us all.

This camp allowed new and old friends to connect and serve together in different capacities, to display the true Lasallian spirit. We would like to show our appreciation to the organising team from the La Salle Centre in Ipoh, who used an online platform to ensure opportunities for maximum engagement. Despite the physical distance between each other, we had lots of productive and fun conversations through games, breakout room discussions and planning our service project.

One of the highlights was engaging 14 boys from RPX as a way to build our community spirit.This involved an introduction game, where we had to guess their likes and dislikes through the boys acting out or describing these. The boys had lots of fun and so did we. Not only did the successful event allow us to make new friends, it also allowed us to develop our leadership skills.

Among the five core Lasallian principles that were shared with us, ‘Respect for All Persons’ particularly stood out to me. It acted as a reminder that we are all the same and no one should be treated differently because we are all made the same in God’s eyes, and just as God loves us, we shall love others.

The Lasallian camp experience was truly an unforgettable one and my hope for all SJIIM students is that we will make it a personal lifelong mission to live out our Lasallian values to make the lives of others better with a willing heart”.

– Jynez Tan, 12K

“I had been looking forward to the IB Lasallian camp ever since I decided to start my journey at SJIIM and, despite the restrictions of covid-19, the online camp was a great way to start off the IBDP. With the main focus of it being to teach us students about what being a Lasallian means, the key values of faith, service and community played a major role. We also learnt the importance of leading in the same way our founder, John Baptist de Lasalle, did.

The aim of this online camp was to build future leaders. We were taught about service leadership: to put the people we lead before ourselves, to be humble and accepting of everyone. We learnt about the work that goes into planning a type of service that is in line with the Lasallian values. We were also given the opportunity to plan our own service, which was a great way for us to work in unison to plan exercises that would benefit the boys from RPX in a way that they needed most. Considering the lack of community activities during the MCO, the boys we had a Zoom call with were thrilled to connect with us and they deeply enjoyed the sessions we planned for them. There were icebreakers to get to know each other, games to build bonds and an exchange of environmental knowledge at the end. There was a lot to learn from the boys, such as enjoying the little things in life.

I really do believe service is one of the most important Lasallian values. It opens up the chance to learn something new and to embody the Lasallian values; to reach out to the last, the lost and the least and offer up our time and effort; to understand the struggles of the world; to do our part in bringing about social justice.

Although this camp wasn’t held in person, the online format was put to great use. The team that hosted the camp, the La Salle Centre in Ipoh, implemented Zoom features into the icebreakers. The annotation function was used to get to know how we would describe ourselves, and the “camera off” function was used to play a game to get to know each other’s likes and dislikes. Along with this, the students were split into breakout rooms, which helped us connect with each other on a deeper level.

I thought this camp made the best use of the resources available and it nudged us as Year 12 students one step closer to becoming future leaders. It gave us the chance to become better people; those who embody the Lasallian Core values. It was an unforgettable experience for me. We truly entered to learn and left to serve.”

– Meagan Motha, 12L

Overall this camp was a great experience. The importance of community, especially during MCO times, was brought into play; we were taught about the significance of being there for and supporting each other in order to reach our best selves. We were given the opportunity to have faith in our teammates and ourselves, during group activities. Most importantly, we were graced with being able to give back to the community in the form of service. We learnt about John Baptist de La Salle, our founder, and how he lived his life in accordance with the very core values we are being taught here at SJIIM. His life has taught us the true meaning of being Lasallian: serving the last, the lost and the least.