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A rewarding adventure: seven students spend a summer on community projects in Costa Rica |
During the summer holidays, seven students from St Swithun’s school in Winchester had the opportunity to spend a month in Costa Rica.
Their South American adventure included camping in the Cloud Forest, achieving a PADI scuba diving qualification and taking part in projects to help the local community in collaboration with boys from Portsmouth Grammar School.
Residing at Salitre Camp in the mountains for the first ten days, the girls started by replanting 160 indigenous trees, building benches and storage boxes for the local secondary school and using pickaxes and shovels to build a path in the coffee plantation.
The students showed great willingness and resilience, collaborating as a team with Portsmouth Grammar students in humid conditions.
Attending student Poppy R said, “It was such a privilege to work alongside the local community and help make a positive impact on their lives. It made the trip an eye-opening experience I will never forget.”
The next stop on the trip was Uvita, a small village with a plethora of fascinating wildlife and sandy beaches. Here the students completed a full PADI Open Water Diver course, the number one internationally recognised scuba diving qualification. During their time by the ocean, they spotted plenty of marine life including humpback whales, dolphins, sharks, and both hawksbill and green turtles.
Community projects in this town included clearing 150kg of rubbish from the beach which they carried 2km back to camp, remaking the beach path and building a rangers’ hut by mixing concrete, layering flooring and plastering walls.
The final stop was Costa Rica’s famous Cloud Forest. Here, the girls took part in various projects for a local secondary school, including building a wall around the football pitch, beautification including painting and constructing recycling bins.
Year 12 student Izzy H, commented, “One of my favourite moments was getting to spend a day with local school children in a community that we had been working in, and playing games with them in their school.”
Matilda O summarised her trip as “A fun and fulfilling way to spend the summer, with millions of happy memories for life.”
“The students all found the experience great fun and very rewarding, forming friendships with many other students across the UK and learning key personal skills such as strategy planning, resilience, perseverance and collaboration. With little access to Wi-Fi and their mobile phones, the students found it a novel and totally immersive experience” said Rebecca Topley, head of biology at St Swithun’s.
“Costa Rica was an unforgettable experience! I’m so grateful to have had the chance to see incredible wildlife, learn new skills and meet some truly amazing people. I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking for both adventure and to make a difference” said Ava C on her return to school.
At St Swithun’s we pride ourselves on the vast array of opportunities we offer beyond the curriculum. International trips such as this are rich in cultural immersion, personal development and not least, they offer great fun and adventure.
Find out more about St Swithun’s, an all-girls independent school in Hampshire, at our upcoming open day:
