IB CAS program taught me to care, to remain physically and mentally agile, to be aware of the world issues and most importantly to enjoy myself by developing my creative skills.
COMMUNITY SERVICE
Planning, initiating and leading the community service project for children born with cleft lip and palate is the most challenging CAS task undertaken by me over the last year. I say challenging for various reasons. Firstly, finding a doctor with whom we could collaborate was a long and tedious process. Secondly, meeti
ng corporate sponsors is a very time consuming process and this was cutting into my study hours. The process begins with seeking appointments with heads of companies (not easy), preparing presentation materials like PowerPoint presentations and movies to present, making presentations to convince them to sponsor the surgeries or the event being organized by us, sending letters from school signed by the head of school, continue follow up and finally collecting the cheque.
However, our collaboration with the corporate sponsors and the doctors is the reason for the success of cleft palate service. We have thus far sponsored 25 surgeries thanks to each and every individual who helped our cause.
While the process may have been tedious,
I am proud of my project because it is a global issue (particularly developing world) that needs to be addressed. One of the doctors with whom we are collaborating travels across the world to conduct cleft palate surgeries free of charge for the underprivileged children.
This is my first time leading a team. I had my share of challenges doing this but the team worked well together to organize an event in 2010. Leading the service helped me understand that my strengths are my organizational skills and presentation skills.
Our Team at Lady Ridgeway Hospital, Colombo
However, in November 2010 we faced our biggest challenge. A city hotel that promised the venue for our event withdrew their support just 2 weeks before the night of the event. With X-Mas around the corner, we had no choice but to cancel the event despite having worked on the posters, tickets and sponsors the entire semester. I realized that my biggest problem laid in taking the word of the hotel personnel regarding the venue and not asking them in writing for the venue confirmation. I should have taken a written confirmation and henceforth I will. I need to improve my follow through procedures in order to avoid these situations in future. Another mistake I made was to plan a single largest fund raiser rather than planning few small events which could have kept our team busy through the semester. This is another area I will need to improve upon.
One of the ethical issues I have had to consider while running the service has been our actual contact with the children undergoing surgery. Our team met four children on the day we visitedthe hospital. Although we were given permission to attend the surgery and we were even asked to attend the surgery, it was not possible for us to be with the children in the hospital because they arrive a couple of hours before the surgery from different parts of Sri Lanka and leave two days later. Clearly we cannot disturb them during this process. However we did organize goody bags for the kids with UHT flavoured milk, biscuits and drawing books with crayons. Some of these goodies were sponsored by our corporate sponsors. While other CAS activities are doing painting buildings, picking garbage, playing with prison babies we are raising funds for surgeries that are critical for integrating children into society.
Despite the set backs, I continue to persevere as I truly believe that we can make a difference. We are in the process of organizing our next big event at TAJ. I am committed to making the event that we are planning for April a success.
Two grade 11 students have been identified to gradually take over the service from Raj and me. From January 2011 they have been involved in the process. I have taken them to introduce the sponsors.Below is a movie featuring the children whose surgeries were sponsored by us this year.
ACTION
Golf, tennis and gym made up the action components of my CAS over the last year. It was challenging to do all three activities where I would have ideally liked to have done golf and gym. Time management was the biggest challenge I faced juggling the activities.
I have been playing golf nearly two years now and I love it. Since I intend to pursue golf at Varsity level, I am committed to pursuing the game, to build upon my strengths which is my drive and to practice my weak areas which are putting and pitching. I continue to persevere and practice, practice, practice in order to get a single-digit handicap sooner than later. I play at least once a week even though it takes three hours minimum to play 18 holes. Golf helped me learn that mind plays a major role in sport and stressing about the end result will not help your game. Controlling my arm power is an area of growth that I need to work on and this improve my short game.
I enjoy tennis and I played tennis for almost nine years before giving it up in favor of golf. However, I had to pick up tennis again because I was told to do an action component that has rigorous physical activity. This helped with my collaboration skills because I have started playing doubles game and collaboration with your partner is the key to success in doubles tennis.
I have been a regular at gym over the last two years for two reasons. First I wanted to lose weight and secondly, running on the treadmill gives me the much needed energy for the day. Although I run three times a week, I haven't been able to achieve my ideal BMI. I have learnt that this is because of my food and eating habits. Having mid-night snacks while staying up late to study and finish assignments has not helped my cause.
An area of weakness that I need to work on is my commitment to eating healthy because it is not helping me achieve my ideal BMI results despite working out in the gym. Another area of weakness has been not doing SAISA, thereby not doing any group action activity. Although I trained hard and tried out for basketball in grade 11 and track and Field in grade 12, these sports are not my areas of strength. However, I am aware these events promote collaboration between the members of the team. It is wonderful to supportive of team members as it is a much needed skill. This is an experience I missed out on due to my individual sports events. It is an area I want to work upon as it help me learn team building skills and spirit.
CREATIVITY
Being a delegate of COMUN in grades 10 and 11 made the greatest difference to my personal development. MUN raised my social awareness and helped me understand the need to give back to the community that we live in. Whether it was "Human Trafficking" or "Human Rights" the depth of knowledge I attained through intense research helped me become a caring global citizen. The experience compelled me to look to look at the problems faced by people across the world. My passion for community service was greatly derived from the knowledge I gained through MUN research. Collaboration is central to MUN and I learnt to work as a team player whether we were debating or writing resolutions.
Although I was keen to contest as COMUN Head of Finance for 2010-2011, my parents discouraged me from doing so citing time constraints. I look upon that as an opportunity that I failed to take up. I even questioned the ethical implications of my decision as this shows a lack of commitment. However, I would like to stress that my commitment to world issues and building organizational skills remain strong. I have proven this through my community service project.
Hence, in grade 12 I started playing guitar. I learnt guitar previously for nearly three years and was a part of junior guitar ensemble in my last school. So, I decided to build upon skills that I had learnt previously and continue my lessons this year. One of my weak areas is reading the notes and I continue to read TAB. I am committed to improving my skills with acoustic guitar. Since this is not a formal lesson that follows exam pattern, it lacks structure and this is one of the areas I need to work on but I do not have the time to take structured lessons at this time.
I took up the challenge of making the videos for my service project. For this I prepare text slides first on PowerPoint, edit photos of children with clefts on Adobe photo shop and edit music on garage band to finally complete my video on iMovie. I undertook this challenge because it helps to attract more people to cleft service. In the process I have learnt the new skills.
FINAL REFLECTIONS:
I finally understand why every single person I met before I started IB program talked about time management skills. The biggest challenge that I faced doing CAS were the time constraints. However, I managed to successfully complete my CAS commitments. CAS helped me challenge myself, develop new skills, remain committed whether it is in playing golf, tennis or guitar. Most importantly, CAS helped me to take responsibility and in the process helped me grow as an individual who looks beyond personal interests and who takes pleasure in giving back to the community.
