Year 11 students from St Paul’s Catholic High School in Wythenshawe, Greater Manchester, enjoyed the school trip of a lifetime when they visited a children’s charity in Thailand.
As part of their Citizenship classes the pupils, and three teachers, joined the Thai Children’s Trust in Pattaya, Thailand, where they visited a children’s day care centre and a school for the blind.
Far from being a relaxing holiday, the students were busy helping painting the school, assisting with numeracy and literacy classes, taking part in dance and cookery lessons and conducting PE lessons for the children.
The students had to raise money to cover the cost of their trip and to support the valuable work being done for the many disadvantaged children in Pattaya. The students tried their hands at everything, from washing cars to packing shopping bags and even baked several hundred cakes.
Ursula Gallagher, head of Humanities at St Paul’s, said: “At St Paul’s we believe it is important for our pupils to care about the wider community and I am delighted to see our students’ enthusiasm for helping underprivileged children. There were some strong friendships formed between our pupils and the Thai children.
“We have all found this to be an extremely rewarding and valuable cause and a great help to the students’ studies.
“It was a unique opportunity for them to see inequality and hardship at first hand. To provide this caring environment costs a substantial amount of money and the charity is funded almost entirely by voluntary donations.
“It is important for our pupils to care about the wider community and I am delighted to see them finding ways to contribute towards the care of those less fortunate than themselves.”
Headteacher Wiktor Daron said: “I’d like to pay a huge tribute to those involved for their generosity of spirit and willingness to get involved.
“As a school, we encourage our pupils to have a social conscience. Pattaya orphanage is making a big difference to the lives of real people in Thailand, also it was founded by a Catholic priest, Fr Ray Brennan, so continues the Catholic ethos which is the foundation of our school.”
Andrew Scadding, director of Thai Children’s Trust, said: “We were delighted that pupils from St Paul’s Catholic High School were able to join us in our work to support vulnerable and disadvantaged children in Pattaya. Thai Children’s Trust would like to extend the invitation to all Catholic schools to come and see social teaching in action as part of their citizenship studies.”
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