Youths for SDGs

In the time span from January to March, the Virtual Youths for SDGs conference took place for high school students. Just as in previous years, �ۿ۴�ý was happy to be involved in this virtual conference, despite the difficulties of Covid-19 pandemic.��

Youths for SDGs is an academic event where students from different schools interact, learn about the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), express their opinions, and tackle real world problems. Although in the past, the conference took place in international schools, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the conference took place online as it also did in 2021. Nevertheless, students still gained valuable experiences from connecting with other students online and discussing global issues. In fact, taking advantage of the conference being held virtually, students outside of Thailand participated as well.��

Case Challenge

This event started on January 11th with the Case Challenge. Students gathered in groups of three and were given four issues to find solutions to, based on SDGs. This year, the topics were based on the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. Students were given until February 11th to work with their teammates to find solutions to the given topics, make presentations, record their presentations, and submit. From there, five groups were chosen to go to the final round, which took place on March 12th. All participants attended the ZOOM meeting online to watch the top five groups present their solutions. The meeting began with the opening speech by Ms. Prim, the founder of Youths for SDGs (also a Wells teacher and a Wells alumnus, Class of 2015), and a representative from UNDP. Then, the selected five groups presented their solutions and answered questions from judges and audience members. Everyone strived to come up with their own creative solutions to tackle real global issues.��

Breakout Sessions

On February 5th, students attended Breakout Sessions onlineto learn and discuss existing global issues and connect them to SDGs. There were ten different breakout rooms for students to choose from, with the maximum of three rooms. The topics varied from technology, Covid-19 pandemic, education, and so on. Youth leaders, who are high school students, took the lead in the Breakout Sessions to present the issues and engage participants in discussion to express their opinions and give possible solutions.

Personal Reflection

As it was my second time attending the Youths for SDGs conference, things went smoothly in both the Case Challenge and Breakout Sessions, as I was more confident in what I was doing. The Case Challenge was more fun this year as there were four topics rather than only one. Because all the topics were related to Covid-19 pandemic, it made me aware of more current issues. My group’s main solution was to make an app, and working on this presentation made me want to have our app in real life. Presentations in the final round of the Case Challenge were all inspiring. I was surprised that the winners were from a school in Malaysia, but it just proved that we are all connected and striving to work together during the Covid-19 pandemic. I learned a lot from the Breakout Sessions as well. I met Youth Leaders that I knew from past inter-school events, and seeing them becoming the Youth Leaders inspired me to also want to be one in the future. In another breakout session, the Youth Leader explained the topic based on her real experiences, which was very interesting and relatable. Compared to last year, I could engage in discussions more confidently, so I was able to interact with other participants and learn much more from them.��

On behalf of Wells, I would like to express my gratitude to Ms. Prim and the Youths for SDGs team for organizing an engaging virtual conference and giving international school students a platform to exchange ideas, collaborate and allow their voices to be heard.

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Here are some of the highlights of what has been happening in our virtual classrooms in high school:

Learning Through Google Meets

Students presenting in Ms. Farhana’s Algebra class

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Learning ICT with Mr. Raj

Student presentations in Ms. Lee’s IB Business Management class

Big smiles in IB Theory of Knowledge (TOK)!

Showing our connectedness via Google Meets in Ms. Grace’s IB Mandarin class

Notable Student Work & Projects

Through their various subjects, students were given opportunities to develop both content knowledge, as well as their video editing skills, such as Ms. Viessa’s IB Psychology classes, Ms. Sandy’s IB Economics classes, and Ms. Farhana’s Algebra II classes. In IB Psychology, Ms. Viessa and the Grade 12 students also put together a ‘Speaker Series’, where professional guest speakers visited the class Google Meets to share their knowledge about Psychology and the real world, as the seniors prepare for their next phase of life after high school. As an example, Mr. Jeff Harry, motivational speaker from , talked about the importance of creativity and play in the process of working towards goals. The student projects and videos can be accessed by clicking in the following links:

Expression through the Arts

In Mr. Ren’s Grade 10 classes, students were given a platform to express their ideas about the current pandemic through creative artwork.

‘Covid-19’ by Tiffany��

‘Corona’ by Miho

‘Covid-19 Awareness Poster by Maya

‘We Will Win the War’ by Daigo

Here are more examples of student artwork and collaboration through the arts:

Digital Fun

In high school, we also made time for fun in the digital world. The Student Council organized a virtual sports day, where students competed in virtual rock-paper-scissors, chess, Kahoot!, and more. They also organized a Spirit Week to boost morale and add some extra fun to online learning. We have also been able to have some guest speakers join us to share with our students and keep them inspired during these times.

Students competing in a game of virtual rock-paper-scissor

Grade 9 students celebrating hat day!

Grade 12 students choosing to wear their school uniforms during online learning

High School Student Council Meeting

Guest speaker from A21 NGO

Focus on Wellness

In an effort to increase the well-being of our school community during these times, we have decided to focus on wellness for the month of May.��Wells��Wellness��is an initiative created to inspire, support and promote��wellness��(physical, mental and emotional) within our��Wells��International School community. Our mission is directly aligned with our ESLRs and school mission to change the world, one student at a time.��Wellness��starts from within. Students, teachers, staff and parents can follow the challenges on the��

For the first��wellness��challenge, students were challenged to complete the following BINGO board by engaging in some healthy activities. Everyone is encouraged to��share photos or videos of themselves and their family members participating in��wellness��activities to the page, or sharing the completed Bingo boards on your preferred social media page. Teachers are also contributing motivational videos for our Motivation Monday series!

This past week, we have also had an SDG-themed week of wellness activities led by our Student and Engagement Committee focused on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Each day sends different challenges focused around specific SDGs, as well as resources for further learning and ideas on how to contribute to different causes, the environment, etc. We also had Max, the owner of , join us after school to discuss how the cafe supports and creates a strong sense of community by shifting mindsets around the topic of inclusion.

We hope that our students, staff, and teachers know that they are appreciated and valued and we acknowledge the effort and dedication that everyone has been making to foster a strong sense of community through distance learning and resilience in our current global situation. One thing is for certain: We continue to strive for our mission of changing the world, one student at a time…even virtually!

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Youths for SDGs 2020

On January 25 & 26, international school students from all over Thailand participated in the second conference hosted at Bangkok Patana School. �ۿ۴�ý, who hosted the event last year, were happy to be actively involved in the planning of this year’s event, and also brought a large number of students as participants and youth leaders.��

Youths for SDGs is an academic event that focuses on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and strives to be a part of this universal call to action. The event’s objectives included raising awareness to the SDGs, creating a network of youths passionate about making change, and promoting creativity in finding solutions towards current local issues. With those objectives in mind, the event consists of three main activities: the Breakout Session, the SDG Quest, and the Case Challenge. High schoolers from international schools were given the opportunity to network and share ideas, as well as capitalize on their creativity and problem-solving skills.��

The event began with the opening ceremony, where the conference director and founder of Youths for SDGs, Prima Pupornchai (Wells’ Class of 2015 alumna) gave a welcome speech. This was followed by a speech from our guest speaker Mr. Renaud Meyer from UNDP Bangkok gave an inspiring speech about specific actions being taken towards the SDGs here in Thailand.��

Breakout Session

Then the students headed to their respective discussion rooms for the Breakout Session, led by youth leaders. The Breakout Session is an interactive discussion where participants get to explore different themes of SDGs, ranging from poverty to hunger to gender equality and sustainable development and promotion of climate action.��

SDG Quest

The SDG Quest is another youth-led game where randomly-grouped participants can collaborate in exploring fun activities and booths related to the SDGs. In the SDG Quest, students were separated into random groups, with various schools mixed together. They were instructed to earn as many points as they can by participating in the activity booths and completing tasks related to SDGs within a limited time. This fun activity made the students bond and interact with students from other schools.

Case Challenge

Finally, the Case Challenge presents a current real-life local issue to the teams to find creative and feasible solutions to. This year, the challenge focused on addressing sustainable agriculture issues in Thailand. The teams had two and a half hours of case cracking time to find a solution and make a presentation.

The following day was the presentation day, which consists of 3 rounds: the preliminary round, the semifinal round, and the final round. The winner of the Case Challenge was a team from Ruamrudee International School, who came up with an idea to create an app that would educate and encourage Thai youth to better understand farming practices and skills, with the goal of changing perceptions about farm work among youth.

The closing ceremony concluded the event with a and a closing speech from the conference director, Prima Pupornchai, as well as recognition for the support of the youth leaders and Core team. Overall, the event inspired many students to learn more about the SDGs and to create change in their local contexts. It was a very fun, productive, and memorable weekend. This event was truly an event for youths, by youths.��

Special Acknowledgements

Wells would like to acknowledge the hard work, dedication and enthusiasm of the Core Team, Youth Leaders and participants, which consisted of past and present Wells’ students, who all collaborated by combining their passions to contribute to making the event a success!

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Core Team:��Prima Pupornchai (Class of 2015),��Srishti (Sami) Soni (Class of 2016),��Tanisha Arbol (Class of 2017),��Natnisha Ahuja (Class of 2018),��Hrithi Bhattacharya (Class of 2021)

Youth Leaders:��Lina Puthengot,��Lucia (Lucy) Lee (Class of 2020),��Muskan Gurbuxani,��Poorvi Daga,��Shradha Silori,��Soumili Kar (Class of 2021),��Shreyaa Srivastava, and��Yewon (Cristine) Jeong (Class of 2022)

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Experiential learning – Global issues in a local context

Connections with UN Sustainable Development Goal 6: Water and Sanitation

In 2015, the UN set 17 goals for sustainable development worldwide known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At Wells, our mission is to foster global citizenship in our students and build awareness of the issues so that each student becomes responsible global citizens. One goal that can be easily overlooked in a country that gets more than 1500 mm of rainfall on average a year is Goal 6: Water and Sanitation (read more at the UN SDGs site ).

To explore this issue on a local level the grade 12 Environmental Systems and Societies class went to the Metropolitan Water Works Samsen water plant. By building further awareness within our students of water management at a local city level, this can contribute to one of the SDG targets for Goal 6: “Support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management” (, 2015). The objectives of the visit was to expose students to the process behind water sanitation practices within Bangkok to better understand this SDG from a local perspective, and help students reflect upon their own impacts at a personal level.

Student Reflections

Before the trip, many students admitted they are not aware of their daily water usage nor are they aware of how the water is managed or processed or distributed throughout Bangkok. Below are a series of their reflections after visiting the plant:

“I learnt the process of the fresh water system. It was something fascinating to learn where I get the water from….MWA has been managing this for a long time and how they solve some of the problems they face was something I didn’t expect….I used to think that Bangkok has enough water and that we were not going through any crisis. Now I understand that conserving water is rather important because water is being polluted, and the freshwater resource is decreasing. So start now before exit gets late.” – Rushitha

“At first, I thought that Bangkok water was always dirty because they don’t have a proper filtration process. But today, I realized that they do actually have professional treatment process. The person at the MWA said that we can actually drink the tap water. I’ve learned there are various processes in treating the water to be sent to houses or apartments… including Chlorine used for disinfectant, Alum used for removing fine particles…and polymers used for sedimentation.” – Soohee

“The trip to Samsen really allowed me to understand where my water is coming from. More importantly though, it made me realize how limited this resource is. The most interesting part of this trip was during Q&A when the staff revealed that the tap water in Bangkok is actually safe to drink according to WHO standards, however there is – and has always been – such a stigma around drinking it.” – Amy

“The trip to the Samsen Water Authority Trip was so beneficial for me as it gave me the opportunity to investigate and inquire more into the water purification process and factors that affect it, a topic on which I am basing my individual investigation on. It was really interesting to see how the MWA is taking steps to make their purification process more environmentally friendly. However, the best part about the trip was when we sat in a meeting room and got the time to ask them questions…” – Jai

After we visited, students collected water bills from their homes to better understand the amount of water they consume and the cost. Many were shocked by the amount of water each person uses and the low cost of water. By sharing their story, we all wish for everyone in the Wells community to consider his or her water usage to save both water and energy that goes into the filtration process.

Written by: Ms. Katherine & IB ESS Year 2 Students

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On November 3-4, 2018, international school students from all over Thailand participated in the first ever conference hosted at �ۿ۴�ý, On Nut Campus.

Youths for SDGs is an academic event that focuses on the and strives to be a part of this universal call to action. The event objectives included raising awareness about the SDGs, creating a network of youths passionate about making change, and promoting creativity in finding solutions towards current local issues. With those objectives in mind, the event consists of three activities: the Breakout Session, the SDG Quest, and the Case Challenge. High school Youth Leaders led the discussions and activities in the Breakout Session and SDG Quest.

The Breakout Session is an interactive discussion where participants get to explore different themes centered around the SDGs. The SDG Quest is a game where randomly-grouped participants can collaborate in exploring fun activities and booths related to the SDGs. The Case Challenge presents a current real-life local issue to the teams to find creative and feasible solutions to.

High school students from international schools were given the opportunity to network and share ideas, as well as capitalize on their creativity and problem-solving skills. A total of approximately 150 students from 14 international schools around Thailand participated in this event. Schools came from outside of Bangkok to join in the event as well.

The event started off with the opening ceremony, where the conference director and initiator of Youths for SDGs, Prima Pupornchai (Wells’ Class of 2015 alumna) gave a welcoming speech. This was followed by a speech from our guest speaker Mr. Sorawit Paiboonrattanakorn, who gave an inspiring talk about establishing Saturday School, a social enterprise where volunteers teach children life skills on Saturdays.

Then the students headed to their respective discussion rooms for the Breakout Session, lead by youth leaders. There were six themes, which covered all of the Global Goals. The themes included:

• End poverty in all its forms and create decent jobs
• End hunger, achieve food security and promote sustainable agriculture
• Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
• Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
• Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and foster innovation
• Conserve and sustainably use resources for sustainable, development and promote climate action

In the SDG Quest, students were separated into random groups, with various schools mixed together. They were instructed to earn as many points as they could by participating in the activity booths and completing tasks related to SDGs within a limited time. This fun activity made the students interact and bond with students from other schools.

In the Case Challenge, the participants regrouped with their teams of three and received the case for this year’s challenge. The theme of this year’s case, Waste Management in Thailand, was revealed. The teams had two and a half hours of case cracking time to find a solution and make a presentation. The following day was the presentation day, which consisted of 3 rounds: the preliminary round, the semifinal round, and the final round.

The judges for the semifinal and final rounds were Ms. Chutima Pratheepkongjaroen, Social Impact Manager at Local Alike, Dr. Kallaya Suntornvongsagul, Environmental Researcher and Professor at Chulalongkorn University, and Ms. Qi Xue, UN Volunteer & SDG Research and Advocacy Officer at UNDP.

The winner was team Satit Kaset IP. Their idea was to create an application called MyWaste, which tackles food and plastic waste in Thailand by providing incentive to people to lower their consumption by earning points in the app. There was a 5000 baht seed capital for the winning team to to implement a small scale version of their solution.

The closing ceremony concluded the event with a and a closing speech from the conference director, Prima Pupornchai.

Overall, the event has inspired many students to learn more about the SDGs and to create change in the society. It was a very fun, productive, and memorable weekend.

Thank you to our partners, sponsors, school advisors, students and, guests for your wonderful support for this youth initiative. This event was truly an event for youths, by youths.

Written By: Prima Pupornchai, Class of 2015 Alumna

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