LO 3:initiate and plan a CAS experience; LO 4:commitment to and perseverance; LO 5: Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively; LO 6:engagement with issues of global significance; LO 7:Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

I have always loved to stay with animals. I had a lot of pets in my childhood to date. I had birds, turtles, and goldfish. Being around them makes me happy and connects me not just with humans but animals. I feel grateful and loved around them. As they are so important to me I decided to help them. Many animals end up injured on roads, many animals are being tied, beaten up, and being abandoned by their owners. An NGO “Eco farm” is already working for this cause and helping these animals find shelter, food, and medical support. To help with this cause I decided to volunteer there every weekend. I spent 2 hours each on weekends to help the NGO by providing the visitor tour, educating children on animals, and providing minor medical assistance to the medical team. I had to give all the visitors a tour of the whole farm and learn a lot of information on the animals on the farm to answer questions raised by visitors.

I had to organize myself and clear my schedule and give proper time for this, I had to plan my whole timetable and make changes in my extracurricular activities. I also had to be consistent and had to show my commitment toward working in NGO. I had to wake up early on weekend and give a lot of time to this NGO, sometimes I wished to skip it and enjoy the weekend but I tried my best to be pledged to this. It is not easy to be persistent because you have to work this hard. I worked in the animal shelter for 4 months and it was a breathtaking experience. I had to collaboratively work together with other volunteers and the head members. Sometimes we had to give tours together or help each other with various tasks. Working together was easy and it was less stressful as I didn’t have to manage the whole crowd alone or speak for the whole 45 minutes tour.

While working at the animal shelter; I thought a lot of things were ethically wrong. The animal shelter provides all the injured and homeless animals home but the animals and birds were still kept in various cages. Some were kept for the visitors to be seen. When I was working, I always didn’t like this part of them being caged because their main purpose was to provide a safe place and no animal will feel safe inside a cage