By Sufi Crishna Chaudhuri, and Madelline Song

The DEIJ Course is a programme created by an organisation called the Jump Foundation. Every time a session is run, two schools are paired together.

For a period of six weeks, UNIS Hanoi and NIST in Bangkok came together. During the six week cycle, students met for two and a half hours each Tuesday to learn about real world social issues, and to reflect on what we, as students, can do to solve these issues. We played games, went into breakout rooms and did numerous activities that would improve our understanding of certain issues. We ended the session with a reflection on what we’ve learned and the action ideas we would want to take back to our own communities. The MS Peace and Justice Council and other UNIS students got to develop new understanding and ideas through collaborating with other students who shared the same interests. 

In Week 3, we talked about privileges. This week really stuck out to me, as we are so privileged to come to this school. We collaborated about how we are privileged and what defines privilege to begin with. It is fascinating to understand what makes a privileged life. We got to talk about what types of privileges there are and how we can help others who are less privileged. We also collaborated about what we know and what we want to learn. This was also a session about gratitude, and how we should be grateful for what we have, and not take things for granted. The DEIJ programme was just an amazing experience. We learned a lot of things about diversity, equality, equity, comfort spots, privileges  etc. 

In Week 4 we talked about inclusion, by doing a “speed dating” activity in which we acted out real world problems with scripts and acting partners. We had the opportunity to meet other students from neighboring countries and had the special opportunity to collaborate and learn new perspectives from each other! It was an experience that I will never forget! I would definitely recommend students to join this programme! DEIJ Level 2 is coming up shortly, the Peace and Justice Council will be joining that! 

To learn more about the programme, please CLICK HERE.