The teachers and students from SM All Saints and Arima Senior High School. Dr Mary Gambidau, Kenkichi Hagihara and Lim Mui Len are seated centre.
KOTA KINABALU (Aug 4): Seven Japanese high school students are here in the Land Below the Wind to learn more about our culture and way of life under the Global Generation Programme (GGP), a students exchange programme between Arima Senior High School, Sanda City, Japan and its sister school, SM All Saints.
This is the seventh GGP between both schools, involving five girls and two boys, as well as two teachers from Arima Senior High School, who will stay in Sabah from August 3 to 9.
The Japanese students are Kotoko Raycraft, 15, Nana Morita, 15, Sakura Mori, 17, Reu Asai, 16, Keito Yamanouchi, 16, Yui Satomi, 16, and Kurumi Yamamoto, 16. They are accompanied by Kenkichi Hagihara who is the principal of Arima Senior High School and Masato Nimori, an English teacher at the school.
The students stay with foster families of seven selected students from SM All Saints – Claryssa Clare Chrys, 14, Faith Fedora Shiu Xiao Min, 15, Veancy Ren binti Idorain, 15, Jian Wong, 15, Mohamad Ashraf Dani bin Zulhani, 15, Myra Lo Su Jiun, 15, and Shania Myriam Koshy, 15.
In turn, these seven students and two teachers from SM All Saints, Yong Siew Lee @ Lily Ah Song and Lim Fui Yee, will leave for Japan in November this year.
At the welcoming assembly at the school hall on Friday, the principal of SM All Saints, Dr Mary Gambidau stated that the programme has significant positive impacts on students from both nations, as it can help to forge friendships and also foster better understanding of each other’s traditions and culture.
In retrospect, the exchange programme was first introduced by the Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation, University Malaysia Sabah (UMS) in 2005 and was officially endorsed in 2007.
SM All Saints was appointed as the sister school to Arima Senior High School (ASHS) in that year and has since been exchanging students biannually.
In 2009, the programme was postponed due to the outbreak of H1N1 and resumed in 2011. It was postponed once again in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and resumed again this year.
“The programme has become part of the tradition in fostering international linkage to enhance and create opportunities for our students and teachers to explore diversified fields in line with the challenges of globalization,” said Lim Mui Len, the chairman of All Saints’ School Board of Management.
She added that the board is in full support of the programme and thanked the SM All Saints Parent-Teacher-Association (PTA) for sponsoring most of the expenses for hosting the guests and part of the trip for the teachers and students to Japan in November.
This was followed by the speech by Kenkichi Hagihara, the principal of Arima Senior High School who expressed his excitement to learn more about the country and to share experiences together. This is also his first visit to Malaysia.
As part of the programme, the Japanese students will learn Malay, English, cooking, Khat writing, arts and craft and physical education at the school. They would also be brought around to learn more about environment conservation in Sabah and also learn about the culture and heritage of the state by participating in a study tour at University Malaysia Sabah and going on a one-day trip to Kundasang, Ranau and Mari Mari Cultural Village.