At SALT International, students are constantly exposed to various social issues surrounding the world, but not only limited to its studies, plans to seek out opportunities to help, volunteer, and execute an action plan for a sustainable program has become the norm of the community.
Specifically focusing on the Educational Service Project, the “PRISM: Volunteer Program to Teach English” initiative has the purpose to bring about a positive change to the youth of the community by recognizing the need to build a stronger community connection by working together with other schools.
As light enters the PRISM resulting in a stream of light of different colours, this initiative has the purpose to lead the children who learn to shine with different colours.
The youth, who are in their elementary years and are from single-parent families, attend the Life School in the nearby community. SALT had decided to make a connection and partnered with the Life School community to create and operate a platform to teach the youth who are not very much exposed to the international curriculum.
The program is fully run by SALT students and an entire curriculum operated under 5 different lesson levels are taught on a semester-to-semester basis. The students taking the course are given progress reports along with a certificate upon the successful completion of the course and have the option to take the next level course afterwards.
The SALT community teaches and guides students as required, however, there is also the responsibility of the students to be educated and trained to become self-sufficient by learning to maintain and operate various projects supporting the community.
Essentially, it is the role of the students to deal with the progressions of all projects in a manner that best guides the student body, the communication with external parties, and the ongoing delivery of the actions in respect to the projects.
The PRISM initiative is fully operated by the students whereby the students themselves develop level tests, lesson plans, and even the overall curriculum of the program in its respective levels. As well, with appointed student leaders, they help maintain the overall operation of the program by selecting other student members, by overseeing the quality of the lessons, and by being in direct contact with the students themselves to not only deliver the lessons, but to receive feedback and communicate. It is an ongoing process where SALT students build a relationship with those they teach and engage in developmental sessions to make adjustments and improve the program to best suit the communities, continuously.
SALT educates students by helping them to recognize their passion and to turn it into action through meaningful programs, social services, and volunteer work.
The PRISM initiative first began within the SALT International community whereby senior students began a “Reading Buddy” program to make reading more bearable, exciting, and interactive for the elementary students. This was soon spread to a wider range of students in the community that included the Pre-Junior and Junior students into the program as well.
Through the overall success of the PRISM initiative, it helped motivate the students to take further action by offering help to the youths outside the school community as well, specifically reaching out to students seeking English lessons due to the lack thereof opportunities on their end.
