The International Baccalaureate (IB) celebrates this year it’s 50th Anniversary and held its 2018 IB Africa, Europe, Middle East Global Conference from 4 - 6 October at the Austria Centre, Vienna. This year's theme was ‘Shaping the Future’ and VIS was privileged to contribute to it with great performances and speeches.
As is the tradition with such conferences, students form local schools performend at the opening plenary. 50 VIS choir and orchestra students from Primary and Secondary School joined forces with Amadeus International School to wow the 1,800 educators from around the world present at the conference opening.
The audience was treated to Lamma Badda, an arabic song based on a 9th century Andalusien poem. The haunting melody mixed beautifully with the orchestral accompaniment. This was followed by a performance by the Grade 4 members of the Primary Choir, who entertained the audience with a ‘clap-a-long’ traditional Austrian song “Waldhansl”, from the region of Styria. We were all impressed how quickly our students adapted to the enormous stage and performing together with the students of Amadeus International school. The Secondary Chamber Choir and Pitch Blue performed “Million Dreams”, bringing down the house with their confidence on stage and tight harmonies. This song contained the inspiring message that “We can live in a world we design”.
During the conference, Vienna International School students and teachers were proudly representing our school by bringing up meaningful topics like protecting the planet and reaching the United National Sustainable Goals, woman empowering, peer respect and acceptance as key elements for the world's progress. Rayouf al Humedhi, the VIS student who invented the hijab emoji in 2017 spoke about her success in persuading developers to add an emoji that represents women who wear the hijab. Rayouf launched a powerful appeal for all of us to actually talk to one another and understand our differences. "One aspect about being an international students is that I learnt not to take things at face value, not to accept the pre-suppositions that others may have about people around the globe and to question everything" Rayouf mentioned. It is a big satisfaction for Vienna International Schools to see its students and teachers embracing the school mission vision, which is to empower all of our students to be successful and responsible in a nurturing and diverse learning community, so that they can achieve their potential in a changing world.
The Vienna International School is a proud authorised International Baccalaureate (IB) school, a programme of international education designed to help our students from the age of 3 to 18 to develop the knowledge, understanding, attitudes and skills necessary to participate actively and responsibly in a changing world.
Happy 50 Birthday, IB!