Category: Unnati Tarun Agrawal

CAS as a core component of DP is something that has helped me realise that there is more to life than just studies. Because it was compulsory, I did things that I didn’t know I was capable of. It made me caring, balanced, and someone who takes chances and initiatives.

Over the course of about one and a half year I have either initiated or taken part in many different activities but some of them were such that gave me a sense of pride. Those two activities are the garba fest which was a one time Navratri celebration in our school, and ASTH which was initially a small idea which gave rise to an activist group working for the welfare of others. Both these activities were initiated by me and I think this is why they are very close to my heart. Also these were not meant only for CAS; I did them for myself which is why they are different from all other activities that I have done.

Garba fest was initially just a fund raising event but as we started the planning things and organising stuff we got so excited that our motive was not only fund raising but also giving the students of fountainhead school an opportunity to celebrate a much loved event along with all their friends and teachers. The first thing that I learned was that organising any event is hard work however the fruit is always rewarding. I developed the skill of working under pressure, and because this was the first event that I was organising the pressure was higher than ever. I am glad to have done atlas one fund raising event because nothing compares to the smiles on excited faces of underprivileged children when they see new things being bought for them.

ASTH started with a small idea of four friends wanting to do a flash mob on independence day to spread a good message in the society. The first flashmob that we planned was just the day before we performed it. But the MOST important part of this first experience was the thrill and satisfaction it gave me. It felt so good to be able to gather as much crowd and help spread a good message in the society. We never planned for this one flashmob to turn into 2 or 3 flashmob. It was the satisfaction that all of us got that motivated us to that this a step further and give this thing a name. We came up with the name ASTH as an acronym for A Step Towards Humanity and turned this into an activist group on the social media.

While doing all of these activities, the most difficult learning outcome to achieve was the one about considering the ethics of our choices, especially in ASTH, because we took up various societal issues and it was hard to consider how different perspective could offend some people, however I am proud of the fact that we managed to pull it off. This also made me want these experiences in my collage life too, because I never want to let go of that proud feeling I get when I either help someone or help the society grow. It has made me take a decision that I will continue to work on ASTH and probably turn it into an NGO, so that it doesn’t just stay as a school activity.

 

Trekking has always been one of my hobbies because it gives me a chance to be close to the isolated part of nature in this world. So naturally I couldn’t miss the school trip we had.

I went on a school CAS trip to Naggar which is the capital of Kullu. There I mainly did trekking and adventurous activities like skiing and snow tubing. These activities were mainly for my personal development. 

Initially I thought that we won’t be able to have fun like we did in all our other school trips because it was a CAS trip. However when we got there, the pleasant atmosphere and the beautiful view changed my mind.

Waking up early in the morning was really hard as it was so cold but the view from the castle was BEAUTIFUL. Also the early morning short walks really put me in a bubbly mood. I had been trekking all my life but this was my first trek after the 3 year break I had taken so I was not in practice, which made the uphill treks really difficult. 

On the D-day of the we did a lot of exciting activities like skiing, snow tubing and shopping. I had tried skiing for the first time and it was the most amazing thing I had tried there. First of all I couldn’t walk because of the cold and heavy shoes. When I fell down in a funny position I laughed so hard that I couldn’t stand up even with the instructor’s help. It was one of the best moments I had on the trip.

Even though this trip was not as great as our last trip was, which included water sports, I did have a lot of fun.

Proposed Activities	Description of the activity	Components (C/A/S)	Duration with start date and end date	Learning Outcomes	location
Bal mela	This year I volunteered for the category of running stage. The running stage team created a playlist on which we made the underprivileged kids dance. It was quite a workout and we also had to spontaneously create steps which require a lot of creativity on our part.	Creativity, Activity, Service	2/13/2016 to 2/13/2016	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions	In school
Organizing a Navaratri fest	Swani Shah and I will organize a celebration for navaratri wherein we will invite children from different schools to come to FHS and play garba. People will also be allowed to Keep stalls for a fee and all the profit will go for activity 5	Creativity/ Service	start: 15/8/15 end: 16/10/15	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively	In school
Plantation Activities	Go to Janki Van and help the workers there to plant trees and plants.	Service	start:18/7/15 end:18/7/15	LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance	Outside school
Teaching the children who are less fortunate and can not afford of study in schools (Activity 5)	I will go to a place where there are many temporary houses near capital greens and gather the children who are less fortunate and teach them english and make them do some fun activities. I will also use the profits that I have earned in the garba fest to buy books and stationary for the children there.	Service	30/10/15	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions	Outside school
Volunteering in MUN	I will be a part of the OC and help in either in the finance department or in the some other department like logistics, etc	Creativity	start: 30/10/15 end: 1/12/15		In school
Shree nandan school	i went to a school called Shree Nandan with my school mates . It is a school where kids, with difficulties coping up mentally, were guided and nurtured. The first thing that we did was learn about some of the problems they had after which we went upstairs with them to pray. After the prayers the kids were divided into 3 groups and the ones with children who had the most difficulties were sent upstairs and that was the group I chose. We had to make them play simple games dealing with alphabets, shapes and numbers, and we had to try and talk to them and keep them busy doing little tasks that enhance their cognitive skills.	Creativity, Service	8/6/2016	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions	Out-of-school
ISA- French Fest	Initially I only planned on participating in the singing competition that I won but after going there I also took part in various activities like tableau and face painting on the spot which needed immediate collaboration and quick planning.	Creativity	1/14/2016 to 1/17/2016	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively	Out-of-school
Flash mob	We (avina, sakshi, vidushi and I) decided to turn it into out project after the success of our first flash mob on 15th august on religious disputes. we are going to perform flash mobs on various festivals like janmashthmi and world eradication of poverty day and every performance will include a message we want to pass on to the public. We will call for volunteers for each performance seperately. Every performance will include a main dance followed by skits, a song and a host performance. Initially we are going to do it in the malls and the school after we will perform on streets.	Activity/ Creativity/ Service	14/8/15	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions	Outside/Inside school
Naggar trip	I went on a school CAS trip to naggar which is the capital of Kullu. there I mainly did trekking and adventurous activities like skiing and snow tubing. These activities were mainly for my personal development.	Activity, Creativity	12/26/2015 to 1/3/2016	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process	Out-of-school

Video: https://youtu.be/LwZaGYG22po

ASTH: A Step Towards Humanity

Organisers: Avina Agarwal Sakshi Agarwal, Unnati Agrawal and Vidushi Gupta

ASTH is an activist group that engages in various activities for the welfare of the society. Up until now this group has performed flash mobs in different public places and gatherings, and on different issues like women empowerment and the importance of education for all. Also this group has been a part of fund raisers and has been involved in teaching underprivileged kids.

In our very first attempt at a flash mob, we made a lot of mistakes, mainly because it was a one day plan. Initially I was really against the idea of doing a flashmob in a MALL on such short notice because we had nothing in place, no idea, no dance, no resources, no people. We had come up with this idea in our meal breaks on 13th august for crying out loud. In short, the idea seemed impossible and REALLY intimidating. it took a lot of convincing, at least on my part, to go through with it and after a while I was like we’ll just do what we can, we had nothing to lose.

As we planned to do the flashmob on the independence day we thought of some themes that we could work on, because our goal was to create awareness about a social issue as well as nurture the patriotic fire within people. Completely unsure of the possibility of this plan, we started searching for videos of different flashmob along with jotting down possible themes. Religious disputes was one theme that we thought would suit our purpose but we had to keep in mind that we were catering to the general public and we couldn’t offend anyone’s religion or point of view. Therefore we thought of choreographing a dance that that portrayed unity among different religions. Dance is one area that I was strong in and the prospect of choreographing a dance was exciting for me. 

On 14th of august  we rounded up a few of our close friends and family members who agreed to dance with us on such short notice, and met at one of our member’s house to learn and practice. It was hard to teach the dance to everyone as not all of us were skilled dancers, but we did it. Also we wanted to present an original dance, so I used my skills in dance to do exactly that and it worked out beautifully. I was glad that I got a chance to use my skills and develop them too, as I learned to choreograph theme wise.

When the time came to actually present the flashmob, all of us were really scared as we had to perform it in front of an unknown crowd, however once we started we just concentrated on our performance and managed to pull it off. Even though the performance was not really great it was good considering the time we had and the efforts we put in. But the MOST important part of this first experience was the thrill and satisfaction it gave me. It felt so good to be able to gather as much crowd and help spread a good message in the society. I felt like a truly responsible indian citizen.

We never planned for this one flashmob to turn into 2 or 3 flashmobs. I think it was the satisfaction that all of us got that motivated us to that this a step further and give this thing a name. We came up with the name ASTH as an acronym for A Step Towards Humanity and turned this into an activist group on the social media.

This again motivated us to do the second and the third flash mob. We had our second flashmob on 5th September, on the occasion of Teacher’s day and Janmashtami.  This I think was our best flashmobs because it was a combination of a lot of activities like fund raising and teaching the underprivileged. As it was Janmashtami, one of our most beloved and fun-filled festival, we had to have an extremely power packed performance to catch people’s attention. And again I had to choreograph the dance along with one other member of our team. We tried to incorporate the fun element in our dance, and to say that I was happy with the result would be an understatement. This flashmob, I think was the best flashmob in terms of energy, coordination, fun and teamwork. Also because we included a dance by the underprivileged kids and collected about 5000 for them.

While teaching the underprivileged kids we had to really consider even action we took and wether it was ethical or not, because we couldn’t shout at them or be rude even unknowingly. They never had the chance to really learn dance or anything before so it was difficult get them to actually learn the steps, let alone coordinate. This taught me patience and the skill of teaching. However it was another type of fun experience altogether. Also the smiles on their faces made me forget anything that irritated or angered me during practices, because they made me think that it was all WORTH IT. The actual performance was really power packed and AMAZING, and it was what really motivated me to think of the future of ASTH and made me want to continue it.

The 3rd flashmob was on the theme of women empowerment. GARBA!! <3<3 I could swear that this is one of the best and the most fun kind of dance there is. I thought; what better than to perform that, as it will instantly catch everyone’s attention. This time we had chosen skilled dancers only as we wanted it to be well coordinated and perfect, and because it was going to be performed in our school. I am thankful that atlas here the audience was receptive and excited, unlike in all our other flashmobs.

Overall I couldn’t have asked for a better feeling in this world than that of the satisfaction and pride I felt after finishing the flashmobs. Also I distinctly remember, that at the end of our 2nd flashmob, an old lady signalled me to come to her and said “There should be more youngsters like you. You are doing a very good job”. I can not describe how proud I felt of myself at the time. I REALLY hope that this group and this ideology never dies down because I intend to make it big and widespread.

Never in my life had I organized an event, nor did I ever imagine that I could. Garba Fest is an event that I am absolutely proud of; not only because of its success but because of the thrill that it gave people as well as the help it did to the society. It included Creativity as we had to be creative to have decorated the assembly and service as it was a fund raiser.

This plan just started as an idea of a fundraising event, but as we advanced with the plan the motive was not only fund raising but also give the students of fountainhead school an opportunity to celebrate a much loved event along with all their friends and teachers. The first thing that we had to do was to choose the departmental heads which was hard as we could not give our friends priority, so we went along with the method of interviews keeping the ethical concerns in mind(not being biased). Initially we did not have a really detailed plan when we appointed departmental heads; however when we started having meetings and started taking into consideration other’s ideas and opinions we eventually came up with quite a well detailed plan. This taught me the importance of collaborating with the team members we had. During the rigorous planning  stage of 2 months I discovered my areas of weakness which were effective communication and negotiation which I worked upon during those 2 months.

 

Everything was very chaotic at the beginning and it was becoming harder to follow through the plan however when we started sticking to the plan religiously for the whole month, things took a positive turn. I learned that organizing any event is hard work however the fruit is always rewarding; in this case our reward was the huge amount of money that we collected for donation.

 

Hello

I am Unnati Agrawal
I am 17 years old
I have a sibling (who is a pain in my butt)
I live in Surat, Gujarat
I study in Fountainhead School

And this is exactly how monotonous I think my life would be if I didn’t have my friends by my side or this school where I can openly express myself and practice my hobbies. I love dancing and singing, they are my wea
kest as well as my strongest points, but what I love more is how they make me feel alive. They already are my talents, but now what I want is for them to be the talents that I can show the world. Well, I have a looooooooong way to go.

Those were only two of the many things I enjoy doing. Math and psychology are two subjects that I am really interested in and would want to pursueI am also very interested in baking and I could say that I am doing good so far but I would still like to learn new techniques that make the cakes more flavourful and decorative. However I really hate cooking but I can’t be eating cakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I understand that it is a life skill that I wont be able to survive without so that adds yet another thing to my “to learn” list.
Apart from these, there are a lot of things I would like to learn and do. The first one being frisbee, because I love the way it is all about spirit and you have only your own actions to monitor and be upfront about. The second thing might come as a shock to my peers but I have always loved the sport basketball more than any other sport, but I never tried it because I never wanted to leave the team I had in football.
But what I don’t need to learn is helping others, neither physically nor mentally. I am really passionate about helping people in any way I can and I believe that every one should at least want to do that because it not only makes the world a better place but also helps us become a better person. This being said, there is a quote from the song “Jeena isika naam hai” that I’d like to share that is very close to my heart and reflects my ideology:
Kisi Ki Muskurahaton Pe Ho Nisar
Kisi Ka Dard Mil Sake To Le Udhaar
Kisi Ke Vaaste Ho Tere Di Mein Pyaar
Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai
Ah.. :D. I just love this song <3
The true meaning of living is not being rich or powerful but is about how much you love yourself and others, and about satisfaction that comes from good deeds instead of greed that comes out of money.
And in the end, what I want most is to live my live to the fullest and do the best I can for myself and for others, and be self-satisfied.

I have been interested in the subject abnormal psychology for ages now and I am clear that I want to take it up as my career. Also my passion for social work along with my interest made me come to a school called Shree Nandan. It is a school where kids, with difficulties coping up mentally, were guided and nurtured. I thought that spending a day with these kids would make the kids happy as well as give me some experience make me appreciate what I have a lot more than I do. All of that did happened, but this experience taught me a little more than just that. I thought that spending a day with them would be easy, but I was wrong. So wrong.
The very first thing necessary to be able to handle kids is to be able to communicate with them, which is already a difficult task with normal kids, and it becomes 10 fold more difficult when dealing with kids having difficulties because they can not understand us like normal kids do.
The first thing that we did was learn about some of the problems they had after which we went upstairs with them to pray. This I think was the most touching part of this whole experience. I could see that those kids were happy even after dealing with so many problems, and their voices held so much hope and happiness when, as a part of their prayer, they said “I can do anything”; It really inspired me and made me realise how big a problem this is. Millions of kids worldwide face these problems but they don’t have schools like shree nandan to help them our. This made me happy that I could help out even if it was on a very small scale.
After the prayers the kids were divided into 3 groups and the ones with children who had the most difficulties were sent upstairs and that was the group I chose. We had to make them play simple games dealing with alphabets, shapes and numbers, and we had to try and talk to them and keep them busy doing little tasks that enhance their cognitive skills. It was difficult for them to do what we said but I could see that at times when they were able to do it and were appreciated by us, they seemed really happy. Also it was difficult for us to decide how should we approach them as the slightest thing could disrupt their calm.
I worked with a friend of mine who helped me whenever I couldn’t think of thing to cheer them up and this really helped as we could divide our work which made it easier for both of us. In the end we also had a group dance which we all enjoyed. It made us feel more connected to them and I think it made them feel more like us and hopefully made them happier.

Never in my life had I organized an event, nor did I ever imagine that I could. Garba Fest is an event that I am absolutely proud of; not only because of its success but because of the thrill that it gave people as well as the help it did to the society. I am a person who believes that it is my duty to help the people who have been born in unfortunate conditions because I think that it is not their fault but their rotten luck as opposed to mine, which is comparatively good. Therefore I along with my partner came up with the idea of a fund raiser. However for a fundraiser we had to think of various things that we could offer to the public in order to raise money. I am glad to have chosen business and management as one of my subjects because it helped me a lot in evaluating ideas from the business point of view. After brainstorming over a lot of ideas we came up with the idea of a Garba event as we thought that it was something that would attract our audience the most. This is where we took into consideration the saying that Gujarati people can do Garba anywhere and everywhere.

This plan just started as an idea of a fundraising event, but as we advanced with the plan the motive was not only fund raising but also give the students of fountainhead school an opportunity to celebrate a much loved event along with all their friends and teachers. Planning for this event was by far the most tedious job I had ever done and it was hard not to scream when anything went wrong. The first thing that we had to do was decide exactly what we wanted to provide in the fest and make departments accordingly, and thanks to the knowledge I gained in BM classes we were able to do so. After this, came one of the most important step which was to choose the departmental heads. This was really hard as we had to choose people whom we could rely on so as to not mess up our event. Also it was hard to keep our biases aside and to not give our friends priority, so we went along with the method of interviews, keeping the much stressed upon “ethical concerns” in mind. Initially we did not have a really detailed plan when we appointed departmental heads; however when we started having meetings (which were really chaotic) and started taking into consideration other’s ideas and opinions we eventually came up with quite a well detailed plan.

During the ‘rigorous’ planning stage of 1.5 months I discovered that I was horrible at communication and negotiation skills but thankfully the so called Garba fest team had people to cover these flaws. That was when I understood that having all skills is not necessary but knowing the right people who have them is. Hilarious but true. I was immensely relieved for the planning stage to be over because by then I was absolutely ready for some action or the so called ‘execution stage’. Little did I know that the real chaos was about to hit us. I am surprised as to how is it that I managed not to end up in a mental hospital during that stage. We had to run all over our ridiculously big school to get the smallest of things done, like confirming the amount of resources that the school was going to give us. We did so much of running that I was almost certain that we could include the activity component of CAS on the basis of that. Almost! There were a lot of problems of communication among the departments, and the only words that consoled us were “its ok. This is your first time”. However we managed to pull through. To say that we were ready for the D-day was an understatement.

As I entered school that day, just the sight of the lightening made my eyes well up with happy tears. I felt such joy in that moment; I felt sense of accomplishment. But it was just that moment because after that all hell broke loose. The word chaos wouldn’t do justice to the situation of that time. We also had to prep everyone up for the surprise performance by ASTH. I thought that it would be a good idea to have a performance done on women empowerment because it fit perfectly with the theme of Garba as we worship a goddess on that day instead of a god.  Finally we had everything set up, and there were so many people who had bought the tickets right after seeing the decorations.

 

When the fest began there were always little things that needed attention. However the encouragement from the crowd kept me going. Neither could I have been more satisfied of the fest when it ended nor could I have been more disheartened of the fact that it did. Overall it was one of the most enthralling experiences that I have ever had, and the profits were just a bonus.

 

This was an activity that I was very familiar with but it was the first time that I had actually volunteered for it. Bal mela is an event that is hosted every year by fountainhead school for underprivileged kids so that they can enjoy a few pleasures of life that they are not as fortunate to experience as us. This year I volunteered for the category of running stage. The running stage team created a playlist on which we made the underprivileged kids dance. It was quite a workout and we also had to spontaneously create steps which require a lot of creativity on our part.

There were a lot of kids, more than 1000 maybe and it was really difficult trying to handle them, However we took it as a challenge and in the end we did manage to handle all the kids. We had a strong team work, and we had to collaborate because the kids had to follow our steps for which all of us had to do the same steps. That I felt was the most difficult part because I was in the crowd with the kids and the others were on the stage so my friend Kripa and I thought of a solution in which one would stand facing the stage and the other would have their back facing the stage. That way we could effectively copy all the steps that were being done on the stage and simultaneously keep the kids engaged. This way I also developed the problem solving skill in me. Dance was already my strength but doing dance on the spot was something I learned. I had to be careful as to interact with all the kids so that none of them would feel left out and also because we were the privileged ones we had to be careful so as to not hurt the kids’ sentiments by showing off (even if it was done unconsciously. E.g. through our clothes or our difficult steps).

I learned a lot from this fest and seeing the display of talent in those kids really made me question my own paradigms and taught me that those kids are not fragile and I shouldn’t treat them like they are because they are just as strong as any privileged kid I have met. In the end the smile on the kids face made me really happy because it told us how much they enjoyed the mela; it warmed my heart knowing that all of our efforts had paid off.

 

New things are always welcomed in my life, provided that they are exciting. Learning French as a language definitely was. Initially I chose French because I couldn’t handle Hindi, but after a month I really started liking the language but what really made me fall in love with this language was the ISA trip. This activity included creativity as I took part in activities that needed me to be creative like singing. I decided to sing my song without the karaoke and therefore had to think of variations to add that could obscure the need for an instrumental background.

 

In the school we did have a lot of exposure to the language but after going over there and hearing strangers speak in French and trying to grasp their pronunciations, made me want to be able to talk that way in French too. The fest included several activities but I choose to take part in an activity that was in my comfort zone, Singing. However it didn’t quite turn out to be very comforting at all because I had to but in monstrous efforts to learn the lyrics and get my pronunciations right. I had always known that singing was my strength but singing a French song was a real challenge. Therefore for about a month prior to the fest I tried really hard to perfect my song and was dedicated to it. I am glad that I was because it made me win the competition.  During the month that I was practicing I realized that I was good at mimicking accents, which I skilfully used to my advantage to try and perfect my pronunciations.  I am really glad that I didn’t back out from this challenge because it really helped me learn the French pronunciations better, not only for songs but for my academics too.

While planning for the trip my group had only decided for specific activities that we were going to take part in however when we reached there the thrill of ambiance of the fest made us took part in spontaneous activities like face painting and Tableau. It was really fun but it did require a lot of collaboration on our part as we had really less time to decide our strategies. We required collaboration in setting up our stall and I have to say that I have never seen a better display of teamwork in my life. And that mixed with the fitting name of the fest “romance”, made me fall in love with the language of love itself.