Promoting multiculturalism at an early age

Our Residential Camps

This week at Role Models we have been working on finalising the organisation of our first Chinese Residential Camp at Ardingly College in West Sussex. When I was first approached about organising this I got very excited at the prospect of adding a further level of depth to our residential camps. During the two weeks at Ardingly the children will be coached in all four life skills: creativity, resilience, collaboration and leadership, with a bit of language teaching on top, but what makes this experience particularly interesting is the fact that all skills will be developed with children from very different cultural backgrounds, which I believe will make the experience all the richer.

Immersing in other cultures

We have recently run leadership courses in Saudi Arabia, during Ramadan, and that was a very interesting experience for our Role Models who were immersed in local culture for the two weeks of the courses, but with the Ardingly camp, it is the children who will be immersed in each other’s cultures and measuring their skills not only with other children from their own schools but also from children from mainland China schools, whose experience of learning is very different.

The idea that life skills will help break down language and cultural barriers and help prepare all these children for a future of international, multicultural collaboration is something that we are extremely proud of at Role Models. We play a part, possibly a small part but a part nonetheless, in forging the leaders of the future for a world of collaboration and peace rather than a world of conflict. Cresting a space where children from different cultural background can communicate and learn on common ground is so important in developing their understanding of the world and of people. Isn’t that just marvellous?