No mobiles, mirrors or makeup. Cold showers. Mattresses on the floor to sleep on. And hours spent each day working in a mud pit.
The Round Square International Service (RSIS) trip over two weeks in July this year wasn’t your average teenage travel experience in Thailand, but our three Flinders student attendees said they would do it all again in a heartbeat!
Year 10 students Lucy S, Cate F and Johanna B joined 41 students from Round Square schools across 12 countries to build a vocational training centre for a local school from 16-29 July.
The RSIS project is part of an ongoing, sustainable program of support to education in the local community. In addition to the school building project, students also had the opportunity to extend their knowledge on issues affecting the local area. Topics included elephant and human coexistence, animal behaviour and ecology, sustainability, and bird identification and behaviour.
The opportunity to participate in Round Square service projects is a hands-on way for students to learn how small changes can have a big impact in rural communities. The program invites young adults, ages 16-18 years, to develop a sense of global citizenship and an understanding of the power of respectful community engagement.
The next Round Square service trip in Vietnam from 6-19 December will see four Flinders students contribute by helping to build a dam and install solar lighting to connect two villages in the peaceful valley of Mai Chau.
Mud, glorious mud!
After arriving in Bangkok, our students handed over their passports and mobile phones to the Round Square team and travelled to the project base, called the Big Build, in rural Thailand on the edge of a National Park.
Their first job was to help make cob, which is a type of concrete made by mixing mud and hay, and then place it on a bamboo building frame.
Lucy said, “When we arrived at the project base there was a massive mound of dirt and bundles of hay. And so we spent eight days, three to four hours a day, sitting in the cob pit together in the mud, making the concrete.”
Using only their hands, a hoe and wheelbarrow, the students worked hard to build a structure that would be used as an educational building to help teach the local pineapple farmers how to coexist safely with the elephants living nearby in the national park.
But it wasn’t all hard work and mud, other activities included crop and bird walks, elephant dung paper making and hornbill nest box construction.
Our students also spent a day in a local school devising fun activities for the children living locally who spoke anything from three words of English to fluent English. Charades, soccer and volleyball proved popular!
Cate said, “The school day was my favourite experience because it was good to be out of the cob pit and the kids were just so happy that we were talking with them. One of the girls had her uniform signed because she thought it was such a big honour to have us there. They were so welcoming and sweet.”
The Round Square students were looked after by the local community, with local villagers cooking meals daily for the students and the school hosting a special fair which invited both local students and the Round Square students to share their talents and have fun together.
Student Reflections
At the end of the two-week service trip, the students returned to Bangkok to sightsee. On returning to Flinders, our students reflected on their experience with fondness.
Joahnna said, “I feel like the experience puts things into perspective because, before going, my whole world was just pretty much about me living on the Sunshine Coast. Coming back, I can see that there are so many other things going on right now. There are people really struggling. So it's definitely made me a lot less stressed about unimportant things.”
Lucy said, “I learned that you can be happier with a lot less. I felt way happier when we had no real possessions and didn't have a busy schedule. There, we had nothing, but we had the most fun.”
Global Connections
The two-week experience with young people from across the globe has also enabled the students to form lifelong friendships.
Lucy said, “Over the first couple of days, we bonded as a group about just how big of a change it was from our lives back home. And I feel like I got closer with some of them in a short time. In just two weeks, I know we were all saying things from the heart like, ‘I'm really going to miss you!’”
Johanna is travelling to Colorado and Lucy is meeting one of her friends in the UK around Christmas. Cate has made a friend in Alice Springs who she hopes to catch up with.
When asked what their advice would be for students considering a Round Square service trip, our students unanimously said, “If you're given the opportunity, you should take it. We would go again in a heartbeat!”
Round Square International Service Trip to Vietnam - December 2024
The next Round Square Service trip is to Vietnam from 6-19 December 2024.
Four students from Flinders will have the opportunity to work on local construction projects and also get to know other students from across the globe. In small groups, students will help with local activities each day, including engaging with local students at the local school, learning dances and handicrafts and helping the farming community. As a certified Round Square school, Flinders is part of the international Round Square network of more than 250 like-minded schools in 50 countries that connect and collaborate to offer world-class exchange, service learning and leadership programs.
In 2023, two Flinders students travelled to Thailand for the RSIS Service trip. Read their story here.
