By Joanne Burns, Head of School at ES International School.

Sam Bencheghib is an environmental activist who just completed an ocean to ocean, six month, 3,000+ miles run across the United States, from NYC to LA, in order to raise awareness about plastic pollution in the oceans.

Sam is an ESIS / ASC Class of 2015 Alumni. In his senior year at ESIS, he was the President of Student Council, and worked actively to promote environmental awareness and other worthy causes through his role. Notably, while still in 11th grade, he organized a ping-pong tournament for Haiyan, with the proceeds going to victims of the Typhoon that struck earlier that same year. Then only 16 years old, Sam petitioned the Head of School at the time: “When I heard that more than 10,000 people were feared dead, whilst over 12 million people have been directly affected and 1.9 million people have become homeless in the aftermath of the typhoon and do not have a bed or roof to sleep under, I wanted to utilize all my resources in order to make a change, to somehow help those millions of people.”