Service

Service is an integral part of the learning experience at YIS. It involves our community as leaders, learners, guardians and citizens. Through service we develop empathy, gain knowledge of real needs, enter into mutually beneficial relationships and take action.

Vision

Service is a core part of who we are. It exemplifies what we believe about the way we should treat each other. It also sustains the spirit of support and care that YIS is known for. Service allows our school to contribute to and make a positive impact on local, national and international communities. It is action-focused and an integrated part of the learning program. Service brings opportunities to make connections between the curriculum and communities beyond the classroom.

Why do we emphasize service at YIS?

The primary purpose of service at YIS is to enrich the learning of our students while helping others. We consider service to be an integral part of holistic learning. It provides hands-on, real-world learning that fosters caring members of society while addressing the needs of others. Service breaks down barriers, including differences in age, gender, ethnicity, academic or physical ability, and is something everyone can be involved in. Service allows the giver and receiver to benefit equally, even though that benefit may be of a completely different nature.

Service Learning Newsletter

Keep up to date with our program's most recent news and events by reading the latest issue of our newsletter, where students show and tell how they live, learn and lead through service at YIS.

Check out the latest issue here!

Service Learning in Action

See more of our Service Learning activities on the Student Service Committee Instagram feed

Service at YIS

Elementary Service Groups

Chiku Centre Support Group

Embedded in the grade one curriculum is a Unit of Inquiry, "People create systems to connect communities." It has been designed to help young children build their capacity for leadership and service. In collaboration with members of the Chiku Centre group the grade one's build an understanding of homelessness and take age appropriate action. This has included learning what people really need and raising their own money through their actions, such as making a cardboard arcade. The children then funded and made onigiri with the Chiku Centre Group.

Lady of Lourdes Baby Home

16 years ago, we established a connection with The Lady of Lourdes Baby Home in Yamate. The Home is for children ages 2-18 years of age, with 20 children between the ages of 3 and 6. These children all have at least one parent, but for various reasons cannot live with their parents and for most, rarely receive visits from them. Every year the ELC invites the younger children not yet attending school to our center and to play with us. In December, we organize a Craft Day with our parents to make gifts for our Baby Home friends.

Middle & High School Service Groups

Sanagitachi Service Club

Sanagitachi works on bettering the lives of people in need and without stable housing within the Kannai area of Yokohama. Students and teachers regularly collaborate with the Sanagitachi Center to support homeless individuals around the Yokohama Stadium and Kannai station areas by distributing necessities such as soup, razors, toothbrushes, socks and blankets.

HS YIS Underwater Explorers

A student-led service group that aims to understand and improve the aquatic environment in Japan. We will serve our community by working with the organization Project Baseline to check and record the ocean conditions and share them with local governments and educational institutions. We will also develop a further knowledge and understanding of scuba diving to help us support this purpose.

Partner: Project Baseline

MS and HS Chiku Service

Do you want to be involved in making a positive difference to people that live in Yokohama? Are you interested in learning more about the issues of poverty and homelessness in Japan? We work together in small groups to raise awareness about issues that people in our community deal with. Students regularly volunteer in the mornings and at lunch on Fridays to help prepare and serve lunches in the Kotobukicho area near Ishikawacho Station to those who are in need. Additionally, fundraising events are held to raise money and collaborations with various grades to prepare and deliver onigiri (rice balls) are hosted regularly.

Partner: Kotobuki Chiku Center

The Combating Human Trafficking Group

The Combating Human Trafficking service group works alongside a non-profit organisation called Lighthouse to seek ways raise awareness about and combat the issue of human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of young people in Japan. Our group educates others by organising speaking events for YIS and the wider community and has contributed by translating Lighthouse materials into English to widen their audience.

Partners: Lighthouse: Center for Human Trafficking Victims

Van der Poel Community Service

The Van der Poel Community Service group works to improve the welfare of children in two local orphanages through a partnership with the Yokohama International Women’s Club. Students participate in regular outings and visits to the childrens’ homes and they also organize and host the Orphanage Christmas party held annually at YIS in early December. This is a major event that brings together the YIS community and the orphanage communities.

Partners: Yokohama International Women's Club

High School Environment Club

The HS Environment Club aims to act locally and promote environmentalism by ‘greening’ the YIS campus with plants, vegetables and flowers. Additionally, students act as good neighbors by regularly sweeping and maintaining the grounds at the entrance to the Yokohama Foreign Cemetery. Special community events such as beach cleanups are also planned to provide opportunities for environmental stewardship.

Partners: Yokohama Foreign Cemetery

Grade 6 Service Partnership with Bonseju-ru Elderly Care Home

As part of the grade 6 Tutor curriculum, YIS students plan and deliver an activity programme to the senior residents at a nearby elderly home. Students learn the value of building relationships with others in our community and develop their communication and interpersonal skills.

Partner: Bonseju-ru Senior's Home

Grade 8 Service Partnership with Hijirizaka Special Needs School

As part of the grade 8 Tutor curriculum, YIS students engage with students at the Special Needs school and participate in their after-school activities like sports, dance/movement, and arts. Students learn the value of building relationships with others in our community and develop their communication and interpersonal skills.

Partner: Hijirizaka Special Needs School

Refugees International Japan (RIJ)

The YIS group exists to support the work of non-profit organization Refugees International Japan by fundraising for and raising awareness about the challenges of refugeeism around the world. Main fundraising at YIS is based on the sale of greeting cards donated by various artists every year.

Partners: Refugees International Japan

HOPE Service Club

The HOPE Service club partners with the HOPE International Development Agency to support the development of underserved rural communities and to raise awareness about the needs of those in poverty, particularly in Cambodia. YIS students volunteer for HOPE’s Tokyo-based events, fundraise for HOPE projects and advocate for HOPE’s work on sustainable development on issues such as sanitation, education, women’s empowerment and microfinance. Some students in the group participate in direct service as part of an annual trip to a local village in Pursat Province, Cambodia to construct a 3-classroom school structure and build relationships with the local Cambodian community.

Partners: HOPE International Development Agency

LGBTQ+ Student Group

The LGBTQ+ student group aims to promote an inclusive and supportive environment for students of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities at YIS. Advocacy focuses on building awareness about issues facing the queer community and eradicating the social oppression of LGBTQ community members.

Animal Relief Club

This student group focuses on advocacy and promoting animal welfare with a focus on homeless dogs in Japan. Direct service opportunities have included regular volunteer work at a Tokyo animal shelter, discussing animal-related issues with elementary, middle and high school students and promoting the adoption of homeless dogs among the YIS community.

HS Comfort Women Awareness Group

Through working with the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace in Shinjuku, this activity seeks to raise awareness of the stories of women who were forced to work in military brothels by the Japanese Imperial Army before and during WWII. In Japan, this is an issue that is often ignored or brushed aside in an attempt to sanitize history. This was seen recently in Japan's vociferous protest of South Korea's first-ever Memorial Day for Japanese Forces' Comfort Women Victims, which was held on August 14, 2018. This group will endeavor to support the work of the museum, and help ensure that the testimonies and memories of these women are preserved and promoted in the YIS and wider communities. As a relatively new group, members have a special opportunity to help shape the focus and direction of our activities.

Partner: Women's Active Museum on War and Peace

PA Nepal Service Group

This service group aims to support the NGO “PA Nepal”, which seeks to provide basic needs and human rights to prisoners and their children, one of the most vulnerable groups in Nepal. It intends to do this through raising funds, advocating for the issue, and learning about the social challenges in Nepal.

Partner: Prisoner's Assistance Nepal

Other Student Groups with Service elements:

YIS Snow Club partners with Chill Japan
YIS Library Council serves the YIS Community
YIS Middle School and High School Student Councils
Duke of Edinburgh International Award

Our Service Model

OUR SERVICE MODEL

Our model for service at YIS* is organized around specific roles and types of service, a cyclical process for engaging in service, and communities of interaction.

A series of concentric circles modeling how Service learning takes place at YIS.

Students and others in the YIS community may play multiple roles and be involved in various types of service activities during their time at YIS.

The different roles of Service at YIS: Guardian, Learner, Citizen, Leader

Types of Service at YIS: Direct, Indirect and Advocacy

To be meaningful and successful, service should be a deliberate and thoughtful process that incorporates research, preparation, action and reflection.

The circular cycle of Service learning at YIS: Research, Preparation, Action, Reflection

At YIS service interaction starts with our own school community and extends to local, national and international levels. The communities we serve are those presenting a real need, and as a school it is our responsibility to ensure that our service activities are part of a learning process. To help identify needs and ensure the effectiveness of our response, we cultivate strong links with NGO's and other trusted community partner organizations whose missions align with our own. This helps provide a wide range of opportunities for our community to engage in service action.

The Communities we interact with: School, Local, National and International

*In formulating our service model, we adapted the approach described in the ‘Service and Action’ section of the IB publication MYP: From Principles into Practice (2014).

Developing Student Leadership: A Student's Perspective

8 Middle School students posing for the camera with a teacher

At The Heart Of It All: Service Learning In Middle School

Write a Letter. Change a Life.

Extending a Helping Hand