Dubai students and teachers volunteer to build a school in Nepal

DUBAI // A team of volunteers from Dubai schools is preparing to go to Nepal to help build a primary school.

The team is part of the Adopt-A-School initiative working with Dubai Cares and will head to the mountainous country later this year.

Colin Scicluna, coordinator for Give and events at Innoventures Education, said the project brought together fundraising efforts from all the schools and nurseries in the group.

“We started the Give initiative last year and as part of that we decided it would be a good idea to bring all the philanthropic campaigns together,” he said.

The schools involved are Dubai International Academy, Raffles World Academy, Raffles International School, Collegiate American School and Raffles International School Nursery.

“These decided it would be a good idea to pool their resources and support one central goal,” Mr Scicluna said.

After 18 months of fundraising, the schools will work in partnership with Dubai Cares and global youth movement buildOn, which specialises in schools.

Innoventures Education will send out a team of 12 pupils and three teachers to Nepal from November 1 to 8 to help with the construction, he said.

The work is expected to be completed over a three-year period and the aim is for volunteering trips from Dubai to go there on an annual basis.

“While there they will be working with buildOn and also staying with host families to learn about the culture and customs of Nepal,” Mr Scicluna said.

“We decided to support a school in Nepal because we have a lot of support staff from that part of the world and we felt it was a good way of giving something back to people who have helped us.”

Innoventures’ Andrew Jennings, who will be leading the group to Nepal, said: “It’s going to be different from other trips that I have been involved in.

“A typical day is going to take us out of our comfort zones. After staying with local hosts, half of the day we will work alongside our hosts building the school, while the other half involves interacting with local community leaders.”