Monsoon Musings was a literary event, held at our school on the 1st of September 2018. This event was characterized with a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds coming out in the public eye to showcase their inner artist in front of an audience which composed of students from our school, their parents, their grandparents,teachers and other faculty. The main feature of this entire event was the fact that it was totally student-led; teachers had a skeletal role in management. From the coordinators to the working staff, it was an entirely student run event. Alongside this event, a cafe was operating, unique from any other seen. This cafe offered delectable food at absolutely no price; satisfied customers could dole out any sum of money they deemed fit. This cafe, appropriately called ‘Seva Cafe’, was the event where I happened to work at, and I truly felt that I took back a lot of experience. I shall now elaborate the learning outcomes and justify them–

Learning Outcome 2–Demonstrate that challenges had been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.

During the working of Seva Cafe, I happened to both prepare and serve the food alongside acting as a cashier, tallying the transactions. This task initially seemed to be a daunting endeavor as working in multiple roles simultaneously is not a strong suit of mine. However, I managed to complete my assigned role in an exemplary fashion and I can now say that stepping outside my comfort zone has strengthened my ability to multitask. I also had to ensure that my communication skills and my ability to work jointly were top-notch to ensure that we successfully accomplished our goals and ran a smooth and error-free cafe.

Learning Outcome 6–Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.

During our working time, a lot of food and other resources was spilt or mismanaged. Due to this being in gross violation of the cleanliness policy our school has enforced, our group immediately cleaned all of the mess. This was observed not just in our group, but in the entire staff of students at Seva Cafe. Alongside this, we made sure that all of our food and resources was brought to school by eco-friendly paper and jute bags, rather than harmful plastic bags.

Learning Outcome 7–Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

This event was very significant and I certainly took back a lot of valuable experience. During the entire event, not a single customer was actually coerced into paying money. The best part? They willingly donated considering the benchmark our food quality achieved! Every customer we served shared the opinion that our food was amazing! Many people could not help but ask for second servings as well. We also did not work for the money; rather, we donated all of our profits to a good cause, which invoked a sense of happiness and satisfaction in me.

IB Learner Profiles–

During the entire event, I inculcated several IB Learner Profiles as part of my CAS experience, namely–Communicators, Caring and Principled. I displayed communication skills as part of my assignment of the server, alongside the cashier. I was principled, as I stuck with the belief of not asking or even coercing customers to pay for any food. The entire grade also displayed Caring, by completely donating away the entire sum generated by Seva Cafe.

In the end, the entire experience was excellent. I was very satisfied, having done something good for both people I know, and indirectly helping children around the world. As mentioned before, I took back a huge load of experience and am thankful for having worked at such an event, and I will definitely not hesitate from taking part in another such wonderful event.