By Juliane, 11^th grade

In the last week before the winter break on January 31^st and February 1^st the advanced English courses of Mrs Schacht, Mrs Petersen and Mrs Sandfuchs took part in a workshop focussing on the countries Ghana and Bangladesh. We were instructed by a man from Bangladesh and a woman from Ghana.

They started with a short presentation about their respective country to arouse interest. After that they introduced the “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDG). Those SDGs consist of a list of 17 goals that aim to transform our planet into a better world.

We played some games to familiarize ourselves with those goals. After that the students could decide if they wanted to learn more about either Ghana or Bangladesh, hence we each joined the group we favoured. Both groups mainly worked with the SDG “Gender Equality” and while Bangladesh also concentrated on SDG 13 which is “Climate Action”, Ghana dealt with SDG 15 “Life on Land”.

I was more interested in learning about Bangladesh and climate action and therefore joined the man from Bangladesh who switched between games and presentations and also tried to find out what we already knew about the topics.

“The knowledge makes me appreciate my life even more”

There were some aspects of the workshop I really liked. The information that was provided in the presentation helped me understand the situation in Bangladesh better. Many people do not know that women in Bangladesh have less rights than men and their lifestyle is very different from ours in Germany. That makes me appreciate the privileged life I lead even more.

I do not have to wait for my father and brothers to finish eating before I can finally eat the leftovers and if there are none maybe suffer from malnutrition. I do not have to walk for miles to get some water because of the drought and because that is what the women do who have to do everything men tell them to do just because there is no gender equality.

I can go to school and get the information and the news I need and do not have to wait for my father to come home from another country where he is a migrant worker so that he can finally tell me that there is a flood or a storm coming, which may be too late by then. The men are the only ones in Bangladesh who have access to a phone and the women are left in the dark.

Interesting, but also shocking facts

These facts were interesting but also shocking and I think it is important to note how lucky we actually are. Apart from the instructor’s friendliness and eagerness to make sure that we understood everything, I liked his accent, since it made the workshop more authentic.

To conclude, I can say that those two days were honestly more interesting than expected and I learned a lot about the two countries. And even though it is common knowledge, I want to point out that we all have to help to make the world a better place.