CAS 2017 – Page 21

Vansda trip- Jaanki vann

November 21, 2016 Anshu Bhingradia Anshu Bhingradia

We went on a trip to Vansda where we had to plant trees. This was our first CAS trip. Jaanki vann was a governmental project, the project was to build a botanical garden and we got the opportunity to work with workers by planting trees. We were a total of 30 students, we were split into 2 groups (15 members in each). Both the groups were assigned different areas where they had to plant trees. In each group further they were assigned different jobs like carrying plants to the location where they had to be planted, digging spaces for the plants, burying the plants, etc. My job was to carry plants to the location where they had to be planted. At first, I was very excited and thought it would be an easy task to carry plants and will be able to complete the task in a handful of minutes, but it was not easy and nor could be done in a handful of minutes. My team then came up with a strategy. Our strategy was:3 to 4 people will bring the all the plants which were to be planted by us. 4 to 5 people started digging and the other people started planting the trees.Then those 3 or 4 people(who carried the plants) will work with others in burying the plants. By this, we didn’t only save the time but also learnt how to work collaboratively. If we would have brought the plants turn by turn (according to the needs) then that would have become hectic and unmanageable because we wouldn’t be doing the activity by planning. The workers there were really friendly, they didn’t even get angry if we mistakenly stepped on a plant or when we disturbed piles of dirt. We had to take decisions carefully because, in some of our decisions, 1 mistake could disturb/ruin the whole work which we did. We often dug holes to collect dirt for burying plants and that resulted in unevenly scaled land, so if we would have dug the holes properly for the plants (to bury them), we could have saved a lot of time and it wouldn’t have resulted in excess amount of unwanted dirt or unevenly scaled land. The social service which we did was connected to a issue of Global significance because all of us use a lot of tree-based resources (which includes newspapers, books, notebooks, textbooks, journals, paper bags(which are not made of recycled paper), wooden crafts, etc.) and that results in a lot of trees being cut down, this social service helped me by not only understand the importance of trees but also helped me by knowing about different types of plants and trees, where they grow, if they grow any fruits or not and much more knowledge.

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Naggar trip

November 21, 2016 Anshu Bhingradia Anshu Bhingradia

It was one of the best treks I have ever done. I have done a lot of treks and participated in many adventurous activities in the past but this trip was totally different. I participated in new activities such as Skiing, Tube ride, etc.

The main aim to visit Naggar was not to enjoy with Friends and click photos, my main aim was to explore the rich culture and background of Naggar. We went to various different places such as Nicholas Roerich art gallery where we explored paintings done by none other than Nicholas Roerich, We even explored his whole house, his room, his house’s interiors and much more.

Before the trip, I had made some promises to myself which were:

1: I will not pollute the beauty of such a historically rich place.

2: I will not violate any of the rules and religious beliefs of the people living nearby.

I indeed had some issues while buying things and carrying them because in my home town, we get plastic bags along with the products bought but in North India’s Himachal Pradesh, the government has kept a ban on giving plastic bags to carry things which indeed troubled a bit to me because I was not used to it but eventually I got used to it. Since then I had promised myself not to carry any plastic bag, it eventually ends up choking sea animals or domestic animals such as Cows, Buffaloes, etc.

I faced quite some issues:

My jacket was not in a good condition so I had to wear wind cheater throughout the trip which really tensed me because wind cheater is not as insulating as a jacket is, I was freezing through half of the trip until I got to know that rooms will be having heaters and luckily I had enough cash to buy myself a new Jacket from a nearby store in Naggar.

Because we were going during the time when temperature are the lowest, I had to make sure that I carry good gloves so that my hands don’t get numb and had to make sure that my shoes were water repellent so that my feet remain protected from the snow and cold flooring all the time.

Overall, the trip was another fun yet knowledgeable trek experience for me, visiting temples, markets and art galleries fulfilled 3 main aspects off my “perfect trek criteria” and the most amazing thing was THE AWESOME YET ALLURING VIEW FROM THE HOTEL. I love photography, in fact I want to make it my career so it was a great experience for me to visit such an awesome place and click photos for my Portfolio.

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“Some moments are nice, some are nicer, some are even worth writing about.” ― Charles Bukowski, War All the Time

November 19, 2016 Hetvi Vipul Shah Hetvi Vipul Shah

CAS PROJECT – BAL MELA

The event was ‘Bal Mela’, bal referring to ‘children’ and mela meaning a ‘fair’. Bal Mela was scheduled on Saturday, 13th February 2016. Knowledge is not only to be acquired but to be shared as well. This event was organised with a motive to give exposure of various activities related to arts and sports to the underprivileged children. Children from all communities came to enjoy around 40+ activities which were arranged for them. We witnessed miles of million smiles and happy faces, that brought satisfaction and smile on our faces too.

Proposal Stage: Every year the school aims to conduct this event. A rigorous process is followed by the school authority to decide on the suitable candidates to lead the event. The same was followed this year. All the candidates filled the form and on the basis of the candidates responses, and also considering their past experiences, the best ones were selected. The second stage of the selection process was the interview with the respected authorities. I was really nervous before and during the interview. However, it all went nicely. Soon I got to know that I was selected as the event coordinator, along with my two other friends. I was really excited for the new opportunities ahead and at the same time, was happy to take this leadership role. However, along with the authority came responsibility.

Planning Stage: Khushali, Naomi and I had work like planning the activities, allocating those activities, selecting the volunteers, planning the schedule, ordering the resources, inviting government schools, NGOs, etc. we had to decide the menu and arrange the food for around 1500 children (following the school’s food policy while deciding the menu was an ethical action), and the list of responsibilities seemed to go on forever. The event that made me feel like a leader with tons of responsibilities on my shoulders. Luckily, I had two partners to share the burden with. The coordination was maintained at the best level between the three of us. We belong to the same grade and we know each other very well, this proved to be an advantage for us during the course of the event as we knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses, hence, it became much simpler to work synergically and to deal with all the crisis that came our way, together. As even without saying, the work was done and each member was informed and simultaneously was updated.

In the past years, I have been taking a part in the organising committee of this event, by being a volunteer for various activities and therefore I had some knowledge about the technicalities of how the event works and progresses. We took to reference from previous years documents and had a talk with last year’s coordinators of the same event, and along with the guidance from the school authorities we started with our planning. We figured out the things that we need to change from the last year’s format and also tried to work on the feedback given last year.

Appointing duties to student volunteers was a difficult task, as we had to ensure that our personal biases towards our friends didn’t affect the allocation. Ethics played a role here as we had to maintain the equality in the process and also had to make sure that the roles were divided purely on the basis of one’s potential. This event taught me the importance of working collaboratively and the need to be patient and tolerant because we had a team of nearly 100 volunteers. If anything goes wrong, then there is no scope of learning and for improvement. We were truly disappointed when some of the volunteers didn’t turn up on of the event., and some even backed off at the last minute. It was very difficult for us to find volunteers. However, I believe that it was the OC team’s commitment and perseverance that made the event a big success. I have learned to work under pressure.

All the three of us have an inclination towards the field of arts. This time we decided to change the logo of the event. The logo for this event was being redesigned after a long time. We were very proud of the new logo, as well as were curious to see the logo being printed on a huge banner and to see the reactions.

Execution: Two days prior to the event, unfortunately, I fell ill. I was not able to contribute much to last minute preparations, however, I tried my best to do all the work that I could by sitting at home. On the D-day, as soon as I reached school, nervousness had taken over me. Everyone was doing the work assigned to them, all the three of us were running all over the school to check that everything was on place. As the children started arriving, the laughter and excitement was all in the air. I could not forget the pleasing view of children dancing, playing sports, some enjoying in the giant wheel, while others using their creative minds to paint, make a mask and others waiting patiently to get a tattoo done. Nobody seemed to be tired at the end of the day. I was all energetic and was ready to dance as soon as I heard the music. I was in an awe by seeing how talented all those kids were. Another ethical aspect was that we had to make sure that all the kids get an equal opportunity to experience each activity. Also, ensuring that we don’t hurt the sentiments of the kids, either by behaving inappropriately or by saying something which would hurt them.

Learning: The event required a lot from me, from multitasking, effective communication, patience, cooperation, leadership and management skills, punctuality, to staying calm and not losing my temper. I learned a lot and have developed as an individual. We are all privileged to experience the joy of living, this event taught me the joy of giving and sharing. Happiness is not found, it is created by yourself. And what I got to know is that happiness is a thing which if shared with others, increases and not decreases. The event was an opportunity for us to provide space and resources to the underprivileged children to enjoy the joys of their childhood.

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The Global Social Entrepreneurship Summit!

November 18, 2016 Sakshi Lavesh Agarwal Sakshi Lavesh Agarwal

THE GLOBAL SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP SUMMIT

The Global social entrepreneur summit was held in Mumbai for 3 days. Its was organised by the American school of Bombay in February 2016. I participated in this activity with a goal discovered my areas of interests and to meet knew people. This summit invited people from various different parts of the world such as : Turkey, Jordan, India, Bangladesh, United Kingdom etc. On the first day, I regretted my decision of coming to this summit as i could not gel up with people, i was loosing my confidence. But as time passed i made acquaintance with new people. We visited Dharavi which is a whole new world in itself. We were taken to Dharavi on the first day itself for our tuning in activity and we had to explore, ask question, identify problems etc, which would eventually help us to construct our social enterprise plan. Basically, We had to create an enterprise plan which would serve and help eradicate problems which people in Dharavi were facing.

Personally, I am an introvert and it is a very big challenge for me to interact with new people with very different backgrounds and cultures, I always fear about whether they would like talking to me or not, or whether am I making sense while conveying a message. I wanted to make this weakness a strength and try to overcome my fears.

20160227_160721 Winning from other groups was not the main goal for me at that period of time, Winning from myself or MY OLD SELF so to say was my main focus. However, my strengths overpower some of my weaknesses, I have this strength to cooperate very well with others and work on the assignment given, thinking creatively and being loyal and honest.

For making this enterprise plan, We were required to work in groups. For making the group there was an activity where we had to write what surprised us and what were the problems we discovered on which we would like to work upon. Surprisingly, I found people who had similar thoughts as me and people who wanted to explore the similar problems. So we formed a group of 4 people, 2 people were from turkey and 1 from Bangladesh and I.We had to come up with a creative idea which is beneficial, very less costly and which could help the society to a greater extent. We worked collaboratively and devised a plan of our enterprise which helped to improve education and employment. We developed a prototype which exhibited our creativity and presented it to our viewers. Some people really liked our work and we got a lot of appreciations.

Apart from all the work, I made new friends and the best part is i am still in touch with them. I feel that this activity really helped me develop my areas of growth and new skills.This activity perfectly incorporated the three strands of CAS: Creativity, Activity and Service. I don’t regret my decision of volunteering for this summit, Because it taught me lessons of life which will help me grow as a person. I am looking forward to volunteer for more such summits. It was a wonderful experience.

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Winter Trip to NAGGAR

November 18, 2016 Aarsh Mehul Shah Aarsh Mehul Shah

This place is situated between Kullu and Manali where we had to stay in a Castle built on the top of one of the Kullu valley where a spectacular view can be seen, both Kullu and Manali town can be noticed, castle constructed in 1460 A.D by Raja Sidh Singh in the middle ages. This castle had a great tourist attraction because it was preserved as it was, it has western architecture of Himalaya and unconfirmed but outstanding stories which is related to horror and Kings daughter.

We started by a train journey from surat to ambala and then to the castle a 8-10 hour journey in bus. When we reached there was a small introduction about the castle and then the next day plan was mentioned. Next day we started with a yoga session and then a walk to the Naggar town on foot where we had to adjust our body temperature and have to adapt to the surrounding because it was in winter and low was about -1 and high was just 7 so this way it was difficult to climatise as surat has a low of 12 in winters and as high as 20 so it was a new challenge for me. Warm clothes were very much required, after a specific intervals our body has to gain a good nutritional food in order to survive and produce heat for the body. This way I started adapting but it was not that fullest. On the 30TH of Dec 15, Now on this day it was time to do some service and a activity where we have to trek to a village about 4 km uphill a big challenge was infront and we had to cross over it it was a very tough walk and I cheered the ones who is not regular with this and they cheered me that you can do it too as it wasn’t routine for me too, the one who very much inspired me is the locals- they had their small 3-4 years old children carrying buckets filled with water which is heavy and they climbed at a speed where after 2 or 3 second I couldn’t even see them, this was it made my mind to think that “I could complete it too”. On the way we had packaged food which had a plastic covering to not to harm any people, animals I thought of putting it in my bag which will not cause any disturbance to the nature and when I go back to the hotel I would throw it in a dustbin;After reaching up there we came to know about the architecture, culture and the way- how and who they believe in god. We saw a temple where it was not allowed to touch anything around it like trees and the walls of the temple we were just allowed to have a walk and see the structure where our guide belonged to that particular area it was easy to understand and he conveyed it very easily it was my first time to listen to anything related to not to touch their item which will cause them to create a hatred towards the tourist. Before coming back to Castle I bought local products which are home made or are there to sell in order to let them earn money which gave me a joyful experiences, products like- Dried apples, Safrron, Garlic, Shawls and many more which is famous and they sell it as a souvenir. On the 31st we had a great morning where I had to learn skiing which i have never done it before it was again a new challenge for me because it needed balancing and by wearing so many layers of clothes it wasn’t easy to move at all. After few rounds still it was not a good going but I somehow learn to do the basics of the basics.

It was new years night and we all were tired so there was a little celebration and it was against the local peoples ethics not to play loud music and do any party so we respected that and slept for that night and thinking about the other day. 1ST JAN morning we visited the Manali city where there’s more tourist attraction from all over the world.

Later in the evening we left for our journey back to surat. And definitely I brought back tons of memories with me back to Surat, where teachers and classmates helped me a lot with their cheering and having fun with them.

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Maker’s Space – Foosball Table- CAS Project

November 18, 2016 Aarsh Mehul Shah Aarsh Mehul Shah

Maker’s Space – Foosball Table

Making something using tools and innovative that is all I wanted, and school had offered this to us. So we three Vitan Patel, Pranjal Bhansali and I, we wanted it to be something where a user could enjoy and the product should be fun too. We went through about 1000’s of ideas on the internet still we didn’t find anything interesting as it was something which was already. Then we decided to put forward some ideas which we want in our project.

it should be very attractive.
It should be filled with a lot of fun.
Anybody could play with it and they should enjoy it most.
Something innovative, by improving the existing product and making it more interesting.
We decided to not make our project which is very easy to build as we wouldn’t be learning anything new so we decided to do something with carpentry as this could be used as a survival skills as well as sometime later it could be useful in the future and is fun too.

So we saw a foosball table and one of my fellow memeber told that, somewhere there is a Foosball world championship taking place, that way we came to knew that it an official sport too. But foosball are small in size and only 4 players could play it, then we came up with increase in the size of the table as well as the number of players- 8, this thing was great for a party fun. The main objective of this project is learn about learning some new skills which is commonly used but still no one is well aware like carpentry looks easy but it was not.

We started working on our designs from four months prior to the date of exhibition which was on 6 feb 2016 .We thought of only using wood and acrylic to make the base and the boundary transparent, which will make its appearance the most different and out of the world idea. We pledged to give our 100% in the work which will reflect upon the outcome of our activity. From end of december we finalised our project got it approved and ordered basic materials like Wood and acrylic. So leaving everyday routine and balancing the studies to do and the work on this project was a new experience for me by showing determination towards the making of this table.

We had never carved or tried our hands on carpentry before, this was my first time on learning wood cutting and giving it a nice shape. We asked our advisor to give a helping hand to this project, So we learned from a skilled carpenter from school itself, how to cut a wood where we thought it would be easy and there are machines to help, so we thought it would be not that difficult but when we tried our hands on the machine it turned out to be the most difficult part because the machines looked small, but to control the wood saw machine was at times the hardest part, keeping in mind – safety has to be there because it could lead to major injuries. We had to work a lot on the project. We started from buying accessories, despite we have to study we still managed to balance and went out looking for these things like: electrical wires, led’s and sensors for the goal as we thought when a goal is scored, the light gate sensor will work and the led’s would light up, so we went out in search of these things in the list we thought to stick on the budget for the accessories for under Rs.1500, we divided our work and I went in the search for led’s and drive and wire, one partner went for the foosball ball and other for the light-gate sensor. Few things were available in the market and some were not. But we managed with other things and as per time constraint we compromised some things and though to add the features later.

We faced many challenges during execution, because materials ordered by school for us were not a good quality and some materials which we expected, like rods were having different lengths or some part would take more time to be cut, shape and to be finished. This way we had to speed up our work and wanted to complete it on time. We decided to come every early mornings and stay late evening to make the unique table which is not just a table but a piece of art which is very different. Dividing work in a group of 3 made our job easier. As one would work upon the acrylic cutting one on wood and other on polishing and joining all parts together and nailing it.

Execution was the most difficult stage, we faced many obstacles during our making. One week was left for the AS exhibition and we were still having many troubles regarding the players, we decided to make 3D printed players, but running out of time, one 3d players takes about 4-6 hours, so we can’t afford to make players during school time. We decided an alternative where one team will be made from discarded wood and that way we could reduce the use of plastic and wood could be attractive to, so we chose the abandoned wood pieces available in school carpentry workshop.One day before the exhibition, we finished gluing everything and fixed the whole table, and polished it. “Looks Spectacular” we all said. On the day of presentation: the foosball table looked stunning and audience came, where they enjoyed playing it and it was the most eye catching thing among all the other projects. And our work finally pays off! screen-shot-2016-11-17-at-9-31-50-pm

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Planting a tree= Planting a life

November 17, 2016 Swani Sandip Shah Swani Sandip Shah

‘Plant a tree, Save the Earth’ was an initiation taken by Nature Club Surat and our school asked if we wanted to do something for our mother Earth. I participated as I was eager to know the process of a plantation and I also wanted to return something to nature.

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The benefits of afforestation have been drilled in my mind since three years because of taking Environmental Sciences. I learnt how human activities and urbanization has caused many environmental problems globally. And knowing that tree plantation is one of the major solutions to many problems, I really wanted to take a part in this activity. One day before the activity, I was really excited.

However, on the day of the plantation it was raining extremely heavily and we had to wake up very early in the morning as well. For once, I was having second thoughts about should I go or not as I had to walk to the location (because of some reasons) But then, I was determined and committed to go the school where we were suppose to plant the trees. It was a laborious task to walk in heavy rains and then rigorously using your physical strength to plant.

We were informed how to plant them and where. There was a particular technique which we had to learn. Our ethical values comes into picture here, either we could be lazy and not work hard to plant each tree perfectly, or we could try to learn the perfect technique which would be best for the trees. I gave my best to learn from the experts as to what to do in each stage of plantation.

As said Big changes start with small steps. Therefore, no matter how many plants I might have planted, I still felt that I contributed to something on a larger scale.

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Heaven is where the Himalaya’s are!

November 17, 2016 Disha Sanjay Sarawagi Disha Sanjay Sarawagi

I always wish to rest and retire in the Himalayas. – Disha SarawagiNaggar, the capital of Kullu for more than 1450 years, which is famous for its apple, the great architected temples and the customs/traditions of the Himalayan people. Two friends and I planned and executed the entire trip. This was the best trip I had ever been too in the valley of himalayas, as I was with friends who were like family. The trip started with long journeys from Gujarat to the Himalayas (North).

Himalayas is as beautiful as it sounds to be. Chilled atmosphere, adventure and good food is what all I need. We started with small treks in Naggar and then thrilling adventure in the Solang valley. I love going for adventurous trips and all my life i had just heard about skiing, snow sports and trekking. But this trip marked a tick in my bucket list, as i could finally do all of this.

I felt scared and adventurous both at the same time. When we went to solang, I did snow tubing and skiing, which I had never done before in my life. I was very scared and nervous till my chance has come. Looking at people who did it already, gave me confidence that even I can do it. Finally when my turn came in the queue and when I did it, all the fear just went off with the experience itself. I can’t put it in words how amazing it is to slide down from the top in the chilled air.

Later after snow tubing, it was our turn to do skiing. Skiing sounds very interesting but it’s not as easy as it seems to be. We were given half day training or knowledge about skiing as it is really difficult as it requires proper balance and the activation of your 6 senses. While I did skiing, I was able to grasp all that the trainer told us to do. Thus, i was able to balance myself on the skates and save myself from falling. Plus, because i was able to balance, the trainer asked us to try the difficult routes with more cuts and turns. This gave me more motivation, confidence and much more joy. Learning and doing skiing is one of the best memories i have got from this trip.

Plus, while we got the exposure of doing yoga and trekking, I realised that I can further improve my health and fitness by working hard -physically, and i realised how much essential it is for us to eat good healthy food. We used to go for treks everyday (until a week), treks whose routes were long and hard. One day it took us 5-6 hours to reach the top (Rumsu village) for which we where supposed to trek till the top of the mountains and climb more than 1000 stairs. I realised how on regular basis it is very important for me to do cardio. However, we successfully reached the village with a bag of happiness and our body been aching at the same time. 😛

At the top of RUMSU village.

Overall, this trip has taught me a lot about myself like I should work hard and improve my stamina and endurance, unity within friends and these simple joys of life.

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Debate competition

November 17, 2016 Priyam Manoj Joshi Priyam Manoj Joshi

Oratory and speeches have always been something that I was good at, so participating in this debate was just another way to develop my skill.

When I participated in this competition, I was still a new student so I did not even know my team members very well, so I felt that this would be a way to make new friends while doing something I love – Debating!

We were first selected in the semi finals and then moved on to the final round. The topic which we had to prepare for was “Is competition necessary?” and we were against the topic, while researching for this topic, I came across a lot of new information which I hadn’t known before, so it enhanced my knowledge about a global issue.

While debating, I prepared my points and speeches in advance, I had to convince the other team with the most logic, instead of just fighting, so this helped me develop a new kind of skill for debating which I did not learn in MUNs

In this competition, I had to work collaboratively with my team-mates, unlike oratory and MUNs where I usually argue on my own, we did face some hurdles as even within the team we had disagreements, but we overcame those and were able to work together to win the competition!

I realized that even though we won, my arguments could have been much better and well-formulated, I could also recognize that working in a team was something that I had difficulty with and needed to learn as a survival skill for life.

While participating in a debate, it is crucial to have some ethical considerations, in this instance as well, I had to be mindful of the language I was using so that I did not offend anyone and also to remain unbiased and not cheat in the competition.

Overall, it was a fun experience where I learnt a lot of about a new topic and also made a lot of new friends!

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MAKE A DIFFERENCE! EMBRACING DIVERSITY!

November 17, 2016 Priyam Manoj Joshi Priyam Manoj Joshi

Proposal stage :
When I was in nursery school, along with me, there were a few kids who were mentally challenged or disabled, they had developmental disabilities. My mother is a psychologist, so because of this, I spent a lot of time and had a lot of exposure to kids who had these disabilities. As I was growing up, I began to notice that these kids were not treated well by the society, they didn’t have equal opportunities according to their abilities, and they were not subjected to kind behavior, so I had a talk about this with some of my friends who were psychology students and it came as a shock to me that even psychology students didn’t know about these kids, and how to behave with them and what they need. This got me thinking…so I researched and found that 2% of the entire world population has developmental disabilities.

I realized that education about mental health is scarce, and it is a global problem, as until mental health education is given to people, suitable treatments can not be formulated and also, people suffering from mental health diseases would never gain acceptance in the global society.

So I talked to my psychology teacher and came up with the idea of initiating a fest where normal kids could interact with special kids to learn more about them and how they live.

I figured that in this way, I could spread this message of global importance on a small scale in my way.
Planning stage :
I along with my friend from my psychology class decided that we should do something about this problem, but our first challenge was…whether we would get participants for this activity. With low hopes we decided to send out forms and surprisingly got an overwhelming response of people who wanted to get involved in our activity.

We then spent a few weeks planning a half-day activity which included art and crafts, sports, games, learning activities. With the help of our parents, we found a school called “Shree Nandan School” who was willing to let us conduct this fest in their school. We regularly worked collaboratively with the teachers of the school, with consistency, and constantly kept updating our participants to ensure that we understood every process correctly as there was a certain way that we had to behave with the kids. We prepared the schedules, and separated the 30 special kids ( ages 5-18 ) in groups according to their intellectual levels. This planning was a new challenge for us, as neither me nor my friend had organized an event before, and more importantly, an activity of this scale regarding special kids and mental health.

However, we were motivated to play our part in spreading this message so we worked hard. One important ethical consideration I remembered ( thanks to IB psychology ) was to make consent forms for the parents of the special kids, which we sent to them 3 days prior to the event.

Everything was going smoothly, all our activities were planned, we had gotten all the resources, Dhyay and I went to the school 2 days before the event and helped to set everything up…but that day itself, our school announced that there was an important compulsory meeting on the same day as our event.
We got really scared as all our participants would be going to this meeting, and we wouldn’t have any participants at all, I called the teacher up and she said that she had already informed the parents so we could not postpone the event.
Getting 30 new participants before 24 hours was BIG CHALLENGE for us! We didn’t know who we would convince, how we would explain everything to them so quickly, however, with collaborative work of our volunteers, and my friends, we somehow managed to get a few participants, even then, we were still very anxious about our event.

Execution stage :

Finally, the day of the event had come and Dhyay and I reached there early, and with the help of the teachers and volunteers, we were able to quickly prepare everything and set everything up.

We held a minor session to educate the participants about how to behave with the kids, which activities to perform, we sorted the participants in groups as well and told them the work they would be required to do as a team.

Throughout the day we engaged in various activities with the kids. We would rotate the groups so that everyone would have a chance to interact with kids of all intellectual levels. Everyone worked collaboratively, whether it was making the acts indulge in craft activities, or whether we needed help in moving around the groups. Because of the learning of our school policies, everyone was also very careful not to waste the resources like paper, paints, colors etc. Through efforts together, the entire event went smoothly.

Creativity

– Puzzle making

– Friendship bracelet making

– Poster making

Action

– Cricket

– Musical Chairs

– Games

After all the activities were over, we spent some time just talking to the kids and dancing with them. One of the best feedback we got was that one special child who hadn’t talked in 3 weeks had spoken because of the efforts of one of our participants. We tied friendship bracelets and then gathered around in a circle to talk about our experiences. We got great feedback from our participants about how this experience had created a difference in their mindsets about mental health, what they had liked and what they thought could’ve been done better.

( We also sent a form later on so that we could incorporate these suggestions the next time we organized something like this )

We got featured in a newspaper…So that was a matter of great pride for us!

Organizing this event taught me quite a few things –

1) Quick thinking – This was required when we had to get participants 2 days before the event
2) Consistency – Throughout the planning of the activities, we had to be consistent with our meetings with the school so as to ensure proper execution of the activities
3) Ethical concerns – We had to prepare consent forms for the parents of the special kids and also inform our participants about what was expected of them. We also had to be careful that we did not waste the resources.
4) Appreciation – I gained a lot of appreciation for teachers, as I realized the amount of hard work they put in every single day for the students so that they have the best facilities.
5) Reflection – The teacher taught me that after organising such an event, we should always take feedback from the participants about what they learnt, what they liked, what they expected more. I took this suggestion and collected reflections and they gave me a very helpful and deep insight into how I could improve this initiative the next time I do it.

A few areas, which I identified that I could work on, were –

1) Leadership skills – On such busy events, I realized that it is important to take decisions rationally and take the charge, which is something I’d want to work on so that I can lead better in future events.
2) Backup – We should always have backup help, and resources, for eg – that day we did not have enough activities and materials to play games with., so we could have preplanned accordingly.
3) Patience – I realized from my activity, that there a lot of people who have disabilities and are not as blessed as we are, and to help them and understand them, we require a lot of patience. This quality could be practiced in our daily relationships as well.

Final takeaway :
After spending time with these kids, I realize that society needs to work a lot on awareness about mental heath, there are a lot of misconceptions which need to be cleared and we, as society members need to do our own basic human duties to make people with these disabilities feel accepted in our society. I learnt that intelligence is a gift which we often don’t value, and we keep whining about things we don’t have, when in reality, we are truly blessed. Patience is something that is a necessity when we are spending time with these kids, but their response and honesty is truly rewarding.
I aspire to go into the field of psychology, therefore, this event was really close to my heart but I also realized that the field of special education was not something I would do, as I do not have the patience in me to give my best to this field.

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