Once Upon a Saga: A story of determination and perseverance

Once Upon a Saga: A story of determination and perseverance BIS HCMC are visited by a true ‘global citizen’ who has an exhilarating story of determination and perseverance to share with our Year 5 and 6 students.

BIS HCMC are visited by a true ‘global citizen’ who has an exhilarating story of determination and perseverance to share with our Year 5 and 6 students.

At BIS we are always seeking to recognise the aide memoire attributes that the students, staff and individuals in our local community exhibit. We are gifted with a variety of opportunities to recognise those who demonstrate these positive characteristics no matter what challenges they are faced with.

This term at Primary, we are focusing on perseverance. Whilst perseverance can include remaining resilient and seeking help where necessary, it also encapsulates the vision of never giving up and always trying your best. This week, Year 5 and 6 were very fortunate to welcome a special guest to the Junior Campus who came to share his own story of determination and perseverance.

Thor, originally from Denmark, is embarking on a fascinating and gruelling adventure across the entire world. His goal? To be the first person ever to visit every country in the world without flying in a single, unbroken trip. Vietnam is his 180th country of a total of 203 and he has already been travelling from country to country for the last 5 years!

Thor has not visited home since he began his mammoth challenge in 2013 which means he has been striving to achieve his goal for over 2000 days. In this time, he has travelled on container ships, motorbikes, buses, taxis, trains and much more. He has been across jungles and deserts, mountains and oceans. In total, he has already travelled 266,000 km around the world, all without taking one single plane.

Thor was invited to explain a little more about his saga to BIS students and demonstrate the significance of values such as respecting other cultures, people and environments whilst persevering with all sorts of challenges, no matter how big or small they might be. After a short introduction into his project, he opened up the discussion to questions from his eager audience.

With a variety of inquisitive questions ranging from what languages do you speak to how long do you spend in each country, Thor was able to offer us some exhilarating and entertaining stories from his time spent visiting the far corners of the globe.

Whilst Thor has faced a range of problems and challenges along the way, from visa complications to being held at gunpoint, there is clearly a common theme emerging from his project that resonates with our BIS community - never give up on the challenges and changes you are against.

With over 20 countries across the south pacific remaining to visit, you can follow his epic saga on http://www.onceuponasaga.dk/. At BIS we would like to wish him the very best of luck as he has been a fine example of perseverance and has hopefully inspired our students to strive to reach their goals, no matter how big or small.

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