Charity is an integral part of Surval Montreux. Every year Surval is involved in many charity initiatives both from the school management and from the students themselves.
The Surval Charity Committee enables each student to develop one of the most valuable qualities – generosity; and gives the opportunity to lend a helping hand to those in need. The Charity Committee is the largest of our student-led committees, with13 girls, Miss Barrett and our wonderful Principal Mrs Woodhouse. The Head of the Committee, Maiia and her Deputy, Marina are students who oversee the team's activities, as well as internal and external communications. They develop leadership qualities, teamwork and communication skills during discussions in the mentor group and Charity Committee meetings, planning and conducting meetings and fundraising events.
Each girl at Surval is involved in charity in one way or another: girls bake cookies and muffins to sell, the proceeds from which go to charities cooperating with Surval; the girls participate in fundraising campaigns, shoot videos on social networks to advertise charity events. Surval Montreux enjoys cooperating with many Swiss charities, most recently Zoe4life.
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Zoe4life is a campaign that has been helping kids with cancer since 2013, helping their families and their children. Zoe4life also helps fund research. We raised around 1275 CHF from the school fundraising events and with the help of our families and friends; we took up this possibility to help and we worked hard as a team to make the most out of it!
We created a unique QR code for our donation page. We started sending it around our families and friends group chats and explaining to them how much of a change they could make by donating. We also printed the QR and displayed it around the school so that anyone who is in the school could donate.
We created a gold ribbon sales stand to sell the distinctive ribbon pins, which represent the fight against childhood cancer, for 1 CHF or more if buyers wanted to!
We also hosted a huge Bake Sale in the school! As a group, Marina, Ivanna, Renata, and Maiia all came together to bake a variety of cookies to raise funds for Zoe4Life! We students ran together down to Montreux and bought the ingredients , and then spent a lovely afternoon of fabulous efforts to bake all the cookies. Students were so motivated to help children with cancer, as it is such a great cause for a change. Students who committed to baking made more than 70 cookies for all Surval and raised 400CHF! Their dedication and support is extraordinary. This project meant a lot for these students.
Ivanna stated, “I care a lot about helping young people suffering, as it gives me a chance to fund their expenses and make a difference in their lives.”
Then, Renata said, “I love helping people who really need it, specifically with expensive medical treatments and it’s really significant to me and my life right now.”
Maiia commented “Charity events are a significant part of self awareness, self knowledge and self development. It’s really important to me to help those in need.”
Finally, Marina said “Helping charities has always had an influence on me. I truly care about others and helping those in need. Committing to funding zoe4life’s cause meant a lot to me because it meant I had an opportunity to make a meaningful impact on these children’s lives. Making myself aware of society's critical conditions, makes me strive to make a difference.”
We had a massive chance to do fundraising, we helped those in need and still tried our best to help, moreover supporting a cause. Fundraising is very beneficial because it allows us to make meaningful impacts by contributing to important causes, raising awareness about childhood cancer and raising funds to solve this issue and contribute. Fundraising created a huge change in our life! It showed us what it is to be kind and generous!
Lastly, we wanted to show our support to the Zoe4life campaign by participating in their sport charity event RunDay4Life on 21 of September. We were motivated to participate in the charity run for Zoe4life because we could have a personal connection to the cause. When we run for something meaningful we can make a difference and being part of a group and sharing that experience with others its rewarding. It’s also a good opportunity to do exercise and spend a seemingly lazy weekend usefully. The race was a really big thing, our category was 5km which included 138 participants. It was a great experience, we had a lot of fun helping and running for this campaign, of course running 5km was a bit tough but the important thing is that we all finished the course and had a lot of fun, it was definitely an unforgettable experience that we will never forget. We will be extremely happy to maintain relations with Zoe4life and participate in its events in the future.
Cartons de Coeur
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Since 2016, Surval Montreux has been collaborating with a Swiss Charity Organisation called Cartons du Coeur. Cartons du Coeur is an organisation founded in 1998 aimed at helping people in need, regardless of personality, gender, religion and origin. We Students of Surval go there on Tuesdays once every 2 weeks. There we offer supportive service to people in difficult situations. We collect boxes with certain products from the list and then meet customers and help them load the products into their vehicle or bags, we talk to them, share stories and smiles and get positive energy from each other. We learn to give and do good selflessly, we learn teamwork and friendliness, responsibility and respect. Cartons du Coeur is also an opportunity to learn and practise our French, as most clients are Francophones and the main communication takes place in French. Surval Montreux greatly appreciates the cooperation with Cartons du Coeur, we share opportunities with people and people share their experiences, views and stories with us.