Cassandra Lin: Changing the World One French Fry at a Time

Posted on: March 14th, 2013 0
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by Moira Majaha

Who said 10-year-olds should only worry about where the remote control for the television is located? Well at this young age, American Cassandra Lin and her friends were already embarking on what was to become a well-known project called TGIF (Turn Grease into Fuel). Little did Cassandra know that one day she would receive the CNN Heroes award at an age of 14. By now readers might wonder how did Cassandra get there?

At the age of 10, Cassandra decided she wanted to change the world. “ I got even more inspired when I read about (14-year-old Malawian windmill inventor) William Kwamkamba in the newspaper and what he had done to make his society’s life better,” said Cassandra in her keynote speech at the GISS conference on Feb 21. Read More »

Opening Ceremony and Students’ Reactions

Posted on: March 6th, 2013 0
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By Christine Woo-Kyung Jeong

This year’s Global Issues Service Summit at ISK took flight with an enthralling opening ceremony. Based on the theme of Amani – peace and unity, the three-day-conference started off with three different performances.

The first was an 11-person choir, which sang the Kenyan national anthem, “Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu”, introducing the visiting summiteers to Kenya.

Following was the ISK drumline band in collaboration with the Kibera slum drummers. The ISK drumline is a student-composed group, lead by HS music teacher Daniel Ligon. They performed with the Kibera drummers, who only used recycled material as drums, providing the audience with an ear-refreshing piece. “It was captivating,” said Osama from Emerald High school, “it was fun in general!”

The third show was the song “Change the World”, sung by Lucie V, Niamh E, Steffi M, and 110 ISK choir students. They sang about the power we had to be able to change the world, if only we worked together in harmony. It was a suiting piece for the theme of this year’s GISS conference, Amani. “It was awesome. I really enjoyed the drums the MM and the choir- they were all great!” opinioned Sherry Lin, parent of a keynote speaker. Read More »