Bal Mela is a school-led event that takes place every year at our school. This is a one-day event wherein students from underprivileged backgrounds come to our school and they take part in various activities. In the year 2019, it took place on 23rd Feb. There were 37 different types of activities planned for the visiting students to explore, it ranged from tattoo making, mask making, graffiti wall to sack race, 100 meters race, tyre dragging and many more. I was a volunteer in this event wherein I managed the sack race, in this I checked at the finish lines for the winners and distributed prizes to the first three winners, which would give them a sense of achievement, it had also given me a new experience of engaging myself into communication with the children and it gave a sense of pride when I saw a smile on their faces while distributing the prizes. The aim was to engage students in different experiences which were not a part of their daily routine and give them a chance to explore different fields through which they could express themselves.
Learning Outcome 5:- Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboartively
This was an event that had given me a chance to work collaboratively with my teammates to make sure that everything works smoothly. This was not the first time that I have worked with others collaboratively and it has not always been easy to get things done. But this time I have not felt much resistance in achieving the goals of the event as my partner and I had distributed the work evenly and planned our positions so that there was no chance of confusion between us. The good thing which we did was that we listened to each of our perspectives so that all of us enjoys the works we do and there was no one who ended up complaining. I and my partner also exchanged our positions, so that we didn’t get bored with only one job, as a result, I was able to make the students happy by giving them prizes at the finish line and I also instructed the participants about the rules and did my job at the starting line.
Learning Outcome 4:- Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience
The weather was very hot and sunny on the day when this event took place. This was the major difficulty which had required our commitment as I was having a headache due to greater heat intensity, the other thing was that despite us giving the instructions to students, they still didn’t follow it properly and due to this, the sacks were getting misplaced and replacing them again on the starting line was becoming an obstacle in completing the activity smoothly. These elements were very disturbing and had made it difficult for us to do our task. But, we were still committed to our work because I felt that it’s just one day that these visiting students had got a platform to express their happiness. It was their day to enjoy and our duty to bring a smile on their face. As a smile on their faces brought a feeling of pride in myself so I overcame these little challenges and did my job successfully. It is usually not easy for me to commit to thing but when I am benefited from doing something then it is no more a difficult thing to commit to that activity. And in this case, after completing the event I had a sense of achievement and I was happy to do it. It has become an experience which I could never forget.
Learning outcome 6:- Engagement with issues of global significance
Poverty is one of the global issues which is faced by the people of many countries around the world. In our event children from the government, the school had come who were poor and did not have many opportunities to learn and explore different fields like different artforms and learning basic computer operations. Students from my school and the visiting students share a common society. And if the poverty in our society continues to grow then, this might lead the poor students to be part of unsocial activities like robbery because they will have to do these things to make their living, and this may affect the other people living in the society. If they don’t get the opportunities to grow and don’t get to know the area of their interest. After doing this activity, I feel that poor or unprivileged students should get a chance to gain knowledge which is different from bookish knowledge.
Conclusion:-
The learner profiles developed in this activity were communicators and caring, as we were instructing the students, so we had to make sure that our information is conveyed to them in a proper way. Through this activity, the visiting students had got the opportunity to interact with others, play new and interesting games and learn some artforms. After this activity, I felt a sense of enjoyment as I had completed my job successfully as I had helped bring a smile on the face of visiting children. After this activity, I have learned that there are many opportunities for us around us than the children who come from unprivileged children because the things that were very common for us were very new and enjoying for them. And happiness could be found in every little thing around us.
Evidence:-
This is the sack race I am at the finish line to identify the first three winners and to distribute the prize, and instruct them to keep the sacks back to its place.
