Our school organized service sessions for the children from the government school. We conducted various activities in which the students would participate in. We had activities related to sports, dance, art, etc. The sessions were long term, started 14th August and ended 25th September, and were held in the school itself. We had to come to school every Saturday for that period of time and teach them. I had decided to help the children in making crafts, we made bookmarks, puppets flowers and many more crafts. It was a lot of fun to make the crafts as well as teach the children how to make them. However there were some issues faced but my friends would help me with them, so all was good.

LO1-Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth                                 My strength was that I could make the crafts very easily so I could Teach and help the children as well but that was not that easy since there was a language barrier between us, but I tried my best and my friends had helped me as well.  I always knew that there would be a language barrier but I didn’t know that it would be so difficult to get over. Therefore I am happy that I had the chance to identify that issue and work on it. It is important that I found out my weakness because now I will know what steps to take to work on it and so that t won’t be a problem in the future. 

LO2-Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process                                                                                        As mentioned before the language barrier was a problem since I didn’t speak or understand Hindi and could not speak proper Gujarati it was hard for me to teach them and understand them. I had never spoken to children who don’t know English so this was the first time I had to talk only in Hindi or Gujarati, which proved to be challenging, however, I was slowly getting used to it and now I can speak both maybe not properly but the other can understand what I am saying. Although I do agree at that moment I needed to ask the others that were there how to say a few things, I tried my best and helped all the children as much as I could. 

LO4-Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences                     I showed commitment by coming all the Saturdays except for one, that too because I had to attend MUN. I was committed because even though at that time my ankle injury was severe and it would be paining I would still come to the sessions and help the children. On these days, however, I wouldn’t go around for resources I would just sit with the children and help them in whatever they were making that needed help. 

LO5- Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively                                                                                                 Working in teams is very easy for me, and this time it was easy as well. Although, there are a few people that are very hard to work with and there were some in this team as well, however, everyone worked together regardless and tried our best to consider everyone’s opinions. In this case, it was important we worked together because there were a lot of children so we had to work together so that we could cater to everyone and help them. 

Overall this was a fun experience and I would try it again anytime. The best part about it was, in the end, I could actually engage with the children since the language barrier was mostly gone at that time. And making the crafts was also a plus side since I had only made a few at home and I even got to know a few techniques so that is good as well.

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