Community service has always been a core part of IB which gave me a wonderful opportunity to learn new things and enhance my creativity by guiding underprivileged children to develop different skills. The event was of 6 sessions and was particularly held on weekends to not miss our academics. As a part of this event, I had chosen to teach Art & Craft although I am not exceptional at it, there was still an immense pleasure to learn and teach with so much passion and warmth around those children.

LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

It was quite tough to first understand the art and craft activities through videos because we weren’t taught or prepared for them beforehand. I had done community service in 7th grade so I had some experience of how it goes, however, the activities were quite different and difficult to understand at some points of time. I overcame this challenge by myself first trying the art and craft in front of the children and then teaching them individually. Nonetheless, I felt very self-assured by undertaking this challenge and every next day, I got more motivation to learn and do it. This is because learning new skills made me keenly interested in the activities and they be useful in life in future.

LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

As I mentioned earlier, the event was six sessions in total, and commitment was required to get a certificate for the same. Often, my weekends go futile so I thought to get myself involved in something productive and special. Therefore, community service was a perfect chance for me to go out, learn unique things, help children and manage the time left for studies on weekends. Luckily, I could actively involve myself in the activities and was able to successfully attend all six sessions without hampering my academic tasks that could be done on weekends. In the end, I realized that my perseverance in “community service” came from my will to do something different and exciting apart from lazing around on certain weekends.

LO5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

The community service was done collaboratively as we had to teach the children in pairs or groups so there was interaction amongst the group members as well as with the underprivileged children. Working collaboratively opened doors for me to improve my communication and master different art skills in a broader way as there was an exchange of ideas and opinions. The primary advantage of working in pairs or groups was the ease that came along with handling little children which would have been challenging otherwise. Moreover, if a group member didn’t know how to teach a certain thing then the other members could help them learn first to avoid difficulties. However, working collaboratively sometimes became problematic in the case of contrasting views or a lack of skills.

LO7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

Teaching underprivileged children wan ethical choice and action because it left an impact on their development of essential or creative skills. It is morally right to help deprived children excel in various fields so I believe our choice and action of being part of the community service served as a great achievement and joy. Focusing on the ethical aspect regarding the environment, then there was significant wastage of resources as I witnessed countless bits and pieces of paper lying everywhere after the sessions were completed. So, I feel we could have tried to conduct the activities in such a way that generated minimal wastage of materials.

Final takeaway

The community service helped me to become more “caring” and “open-minded” toward underprivileged children and overall, it did benefit them to acquire various sets of skills. Besides, I achieved success by committing to all the sessions as I was not confident about it initially so it made me feel more appreciative about myself in the end. Last but not the least, the community service did not only offer priceless benefits to us students and the underprivileged children but also unlocked our potential to be a better version of ourselves.

Evidence from the community service: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pnEDit4laKJEYSwyJoeVXVRE-LP3CWD1?usp=sharing