Home
Community
Community Outreach

Community Outreach

Run of Hope

Each year, TIS partners with the Four Seasons Hotel Macao to organize the Run of Hope, an annual charity fundraiser that raises significant awareness and funds for cancer research. Many of the participants are TIS students, teachers and parents who show incredible community spirit by supporting the event.

“I’m so proud of what our school is able to accomplish,” said Head of School Mark Lockwood, adding, “It really speaks to our community’s dedication and commitment to supporting important charity events.”

The funds are be donated to the cancer department of the Kiang Wu Hospital and the China Evangeline Fellowship Orphanage in Macau. The Four Seasons Hotel organizes the event in partnership with TIS and Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Macao.

Family Service Trips

Each year, TIS offers families the chance to travel together to another country, with service to others at the heart of the trip. These week-long adventures allow families to experience other cultures and truly immerse themselves in a totally different way of life. Our partner organization, World Volunteer, arranges home-stays for our families in the remote villages we visit. Through these homestays, we truly get to experience what life is like in someone else’s shoes.

Not only are everlasting memories made as a family, but participants learn and grow through challenging experiences. The days are spent working on building projects that help improve the communities we visit, and the highlights always include the new relationships we make with the villagers and with each other. Through this unique experience, families also learn about local customs, traditions, religious practices and community norms.

In the past we have supported communities in northern Thailand and rural Laos by participating in adobe mud house builds. Students in grades 1-8 have helped build dormitories and a community center. Next year, Morocco is in sight with 23 people having already signed up to give back to a Berber village in the Atlas mountains. Stay tuned!

Activist-in-Residence

AIR is a school-wide program that aims to bring to life TIS’ mission “to develop socially responsible, lifelong learners able to problem solve, think critically, and make positive changes in our global community” by giving students access to an expert from the field of activism. The goal of AIR is educational. AIR is designed to support students to think critically, learn good judgement, engage in meaningful literacy, collaboration, and service, through a variety of developmentally appropriate activities. AIR also provides an opportunity for TIS to build stronger ties with our community by engaging families, other schools, and others from the region, in the program.

TIS launched the inaugural Activist-in-Residence on November 1-2, 2018 with Salva Dut, former “lost boy” and founder of Water for South Sudan, a charity that drills, repairs and maintains wells to make safe drinking water accessible to communities in remote, rural areas.

As part of the Activist-in-Residence program, Salva visited classrooms where he worked as an authentic expert on project-based learning, focusing on the question “How can clean water change the world?”. He was also the keynote speaker and facilitator of a student leadership conference at TIS, where students from grades 6-12 participated in arts integration and hands-on workshops. Salva Dut’s residency was facilitated by Inspire Citizens, a teacher-created collective that assists schools in building globally-minded, project-based learning environments.

The TIS community also had the opportunity to take action and assist Water for South Sudan by attending a special cocktail reception and fundraiser at the school. As a community, TIS raised a total of 135,000 MOP for Water for South Sudan and as a result, the charity has named a well on behalf of our school.

Our next Activist-in-Residence will be Songqiao Yao of Wildbound, who will be visiting TIS from November 26-27, 2019. Her two-day visit will include classroom visits with students, an evening event for parents and community members, as well as a half day student leadership conference.

TIS Volunteer Team

The TIS Volunteer Team consists of students aged 15 to 18 years who serve the local community by assisting local organizations and those in need. With the support of the Macau Education Department, TIS students are able to enhance their own skills and knowledge through various volunteering activities, training and experiences.

The number of events the Volunteer Team has been involved in continues to grow. Activities range from volunteering at a local animal shelter to fundraising at a number of events including the Caritas Bazaar, Green Market Day event and Jam handmade workshops. The Volunteer Team has also delivered food to the elderly, been involved in the Special Olympics Inclusive competition, worked with Kai Chi School volunteers, served children with special educational needs, and conducted fundraising for UNICEF, Caritas Macau, Richmond Fellowship and various other NGOs in Macau.

Laos Outreach Program

For the last six years, a special TIS exchange program has given TIS teachers the opportunity to mentor educators from Laos and assist them on their journey to becoming practicing teachers in their home country. TIS partnered with GLOBE, a Canadian non-profit organization, and My Library in Luang Prabang to facilitate the program.

TIS teachers travel to Laos in October every year to work one-on-one with Laotian teachers. With the TIS mentors on hand to help and support, the Laotian teachers then use their new-found knowledge and skills to teach 500 students at a local orphanage. One Laotian teacher is then selected to participate in a 12 week internship at TIS to work alongside TIS teachers and learn inquiry-based teaching methods, engage in hands-on learning and explore Macao’s culture, customs and language.