Staff at Embassy

Building futures

You may not know that Embassy language schools are one branch of a large global education company named Study Group. Study Group has many schools and colleges, including Bellerbys, Taylors College, and International Study Centres in the UK and USA - so it is a big company!

And big companies can achieve big things... which got us to thinking. We recognise that, as our students are benefiting from a great education, and in turn, our company is benefiting from your investments, that we should share that good fortune with those who need it most.

So we set up a company-wide charity initiative.

Charitable contributions

Education is our business, so when we were deciding which charity to support, Plan International was a natural choice. With Plan International's help, Study Group build schools for developing communities around the world.

You may have noticed references in our blogs and school news pages to charity events. Every school has regular money-raising activities; in addition, staff in all our offices often run marathons, jump out of aeroplanes, or (less energetically!) put on cake or book sales to raise money. For every penny that is raised, Study Group donate an equal amount, meaning staff efforts are doubled.

All the staff here at Embassy love to hear about the new schools as they are built. We enjoy looking at the photos and learning a bit more about the region.

Our achievements

To date, we have built schools in:

• Aceh, Indonesia
• Zounzounkanme, Benin
• Codó Nova, Brazil
• Liu Shu, China
• Van Han Commune, Vietnam

Schools benefit not only children, but the community as a whole, because educated kids grow up to become skilled adults.

The projects often also bring water and sanitation to the region; and as well as the building works, the charity provides educational materials, computers and teaching staff.

The latest school

Here are some images from our latest completed school, in Van Han Commune, Vietnam:

Study Group staff and children from Van Han Commune crowd around the foundation stone.

 

The new school in the background, with the kids who will benefit.

It's so great to see images like this, and realise that our small actions and donations are actually making a massive difference to children and their families across the world.

Your life in their hands

Our Student Enrolment Advisors are the people who receive your emails and phone calls when you make an enquiry or book a course through the Embassy website.

It's an interesting team to work in: between them, they speak, at last count, 17 languages, so there's always multilingual background noise in the office.

Obviously, team members come from many different countries, too, so there are plenty of opportunities to learn about each other's cultures, from the music we like listening to, to the sweets that we snack on and pass around the office.

All have one thing in common: they are living abroad, having become fluent in English through hard study. Thus they are extremely qualified to counsel you, students who wish to do the same thing.

Answering your enquiries keeps this team very busy, but now and again, they get to have some fun. This October was a case in point: the bravest of the team (together with the boldest Web Editors) went to 'Go Ape', an adventure activity day where you had to walk high among the trees, cross wobbly bridges, and zoom down zip-wires.

At the end of the day, I think most people had such aching bodies that they were happy to return to their desks and the ever-increasing list of emails needing a reply. They prefer to have your academic life in their hands, rather than their own lives dangling at the end of a flimsy harness!

Meet the Student Enrolment Advisors here, or see more photos of the event on our Facebook gallery.