In Mae Sot, our new project Green Island, built by Estudio Cavernas and financed by Siemens Gamesa, is a perfect location for a summer school.   The building is within the community, and it eliminates the need for logistics and transportation. Our new community house is next to our new football field, so we can easily combine outdoor and classroom activities.

A PlayOnside Summer School is a different type of schools than what the children are used to in the regular academic year. The focus is on child-centered fun-based learning activities. The learning objective is to engage the children, increasing their self-confidence and social and interpersonal skills. Through the different activities, we encourage critical thinking and focus on teamwork and team building activities.

All classes are in English, and though the level of English varies a lot, we adapt the curriculum so the students will feel accomplishment, and slowly and gradually improve their English skills.

For the Green Island Summer School we have around 25 participants. We have divided the group into two different classes; the youngest class are from seven to ten years old, and the oldest from eleven to fifteen. The school runs every weekday for six weeks, with classroom activities in the morning and football and outdoor activity games in the afternoon.   

The children participating are all living in the community on the garbage dump in Mae Sot. The children growing up in this community face more challenges than other migrant children do. In general, life is a bit tougher at the garbage dump. Therefor we believe that this type of education is very beneficial for this particular group, and even though the summer school is only for six weeks, the learning process does not stop by then end of Summer School. We plan to carefully follow up this group when the academic year starts in June 2019.