Aryan Ramsha
I wanted to try something new for my CAS experience, I wanted it to be something that was new as well as significant. CAS in grades 11 and 12 gave me the opportunity to try something new which in this case was volunteering for an organization known as Unitree that helps people with down syndrome interact with the community. It was an open-handed act from my end which I enjoyed performing. The activity that I performed included all three elements of CAS that are Creativity, Activity, and Service. The activity that I performed was wall painting. There were children with down syndrome present with us as well and were helping us paint the wall which helped me improve my communication skills as well and helped me interact with them. As volunteers, our role was to interact with them ( children with down syndrome ) while painting the walls and making them feel included and accepted, this also aligns the activity to the sustainable goal of reducing inequality.
LO2:- The most challenging part about the activity was that I wasn’t able to interact as much with the children but after a while, we got along just right. It was challenging for me as this was something new for me and I hadn’t done anything like this before so I wasn’t sure about what to do next I feel a lot more confident in myself after I undertook this challenge as it helped me improve my communication skills and, I’m a shy person and having a challenge like this was needed for me to get out of my bubble. These skills could be very important in the future and help us in many ways like making new friends, job applications, etc.
LO5:- Working with others was very productive in this case as wall painting is a time-consuming task and working collaboratively could finish the task very quickly. Working collaboratively made it very easy for all of us to complete the task. It is very important for us to be able to work collaboratively as it helps us improve our team working skills and working in a team for this task was very important because if we didn’t work in a team it would’ve taken us a much longer time hence working in a team was much more effective in this case.
LO6:- The global issue that is being catered to while volunteering for Unitree was reducing inequality. This issue is important globally as it is being observed everywhere. Inequality is bad for society as it creates a lot of problems for the people unemployment, huge difference in the pay scale between genders, lack of quality education, etc. Knowing about these issues has contributed to my personal knowledge and growth as well, by getting to know about these issues I will also be able to aware people of them and contribute to putting these issues to an end. My work in this CAS experience contributed towards bringing an end to this issue.
LO7:- The ethical issue that was involved in this activity was inequality, inequality is a great problem as it prevents people from reaching their basic needs and satisfaction which in this case was the children making new friends, we’ve seen that people tend to not talk to special kids and treat them inferior which is wrong. This issue affected me indirectly as I didn’t think of it earlier before when I met them. Although these problems still exist in the world I tried my best to make them feel equal and involved. My opinion about this issue has changed drastically as before this activity I didn’t think of it as a major problem but now that I think of it, in my opinion, it is a huge problem which needs to be taken care of.
My final takeaways from this CAS experience were that it isn’t hard for me to work and collaborate with new people and the learner profile attribute that I think I showcased was caring and communicator as I had to be caring while working with the children and communicator when I had to talk to my peers while painting the wall and while interacting with the children. Taking part in this activity brought me a sense of joy as I had a lot of fun talking and interacting with the children and painting the wall. And my highlight of this experience was when I was working with the children.
