Anand Utsav began with an idea to have a creative art day for the ancillary and support staff in our school, without whom our school would not be able to function, not even for a day. But slowly it became something more. The idea was to give our school’s backbone sometime to relive their childhood as they play such a key role in ours. The event was organized by me and 5 other friends in school.
Anand Utsav means ” An event for fun and enjoyment”. I came up with the name when we were still brainstorming ideas for how we want the support staff to be able to have fun in an event without having to worry about the mess as aftermath, we wanted to do everything by ourselves. This was our attempt at showing gratitude towards them for all the help that they do for the school, working tirelessly to make our lives easier.
LO.1 : Identify own strength and develop areas for growth
From the initialization of the idea, I realized that I have a sense of leadership and communication when no one else would. In planning an event there are clashes on certain ideas and methods while coordinating with the few teachers who knew about the event taking place as wanted it to be a surprise for the support and admin staff. Whenever we hit a snag during planning, I tried to make sure that ideas were still appreciated and that things run smoothly moving forward. On the day of the event, managing two venues with approximately 300 participants and over 50 volunteers was difficult but being a little strict about management helped. I was in charge of making sure we have volunteers and that all the volunteers were assigned and informed about their tasks and managed to do so by clear communication.
LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
The initial planning started around December of 2021, the first challenge we faced was finding an appropriate date that worked with everyone’s schedules whether that is the staff itself or us. As IBDP students, our schedules remain packed some with SAT prep, and with other events or submissions, and it isn’t easy to get all 300 members of the admin and support staff who keep the school running suddenly abandon their work. And with Covid in the picture, it became even harder to fix a date, finally, we realized that to make sure this event is a success and accomplishes its intention we will plan everything over the summer and the event will take place on 2nd July in Grade 12. Another challenge I faced was that in planning such a high-scale event, engaging the participants were of utmost importance, and for that, my friends and I needed to manage all supplies and resources and come up with activities that are tailor-made to give some time away from their work but we managed to do so by engaging our brains to come with games we know our parents enjoyed when they were young and what we enjoy as well.
the third challenge was that we weren’t given any slots to work on the event so we had to make do with early in’s and put all our free slots to make the game supplies. 6 of us made all the posters without any volunteers to help as we could not pull them out of their classes, but with submissions and taking out any free time for this we managed very well.
LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
The core committee for the event consisted of 6 members, we got to work as soon the concept was developed after a few didi’s we knew were so curious seeing us make bracelets by hand. We had to be very meticulous about each and every detail from keeping all the volunteers in check to making sure all the supplies reach the venues on time. For this, we made sure our spreadsheets remained updated and that all the involved teachers were aware of the progress made to manage different venues and different activities. We set up 20 stalls in one venue and about 10 in the second for the activity part.
LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
As mentioned, we planned the event for a period of about 4 months on and off and worked during early-ins for about 2 weeks regularly to make the posters and preparations for all the stalls needed. Making gratitude cards and volunteer certificates took a lot of time too. Finalizing every volunteer assignment to make sure everyone worked diligently to ensure the staff has fun was also a time-consuming task but all of the work was worth it as the staff was very happy that someone took out the time to plan an event solely to make them feel special.
LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
All of us were extremely driven to deliver on what we intended as most of us have been in this school from the start and some of the staff have seen us grow up in the school, we wanted to show our appreciation so we took out time whenever possible in and out of school to plan everything. All of us had great ideas and worked according to our individual strengths by dividing work and coming back to update each other. We integrated a few of our own personal touches into the games to deliver our best which was appreciated by everyone. Any idea clashes were resolved peacefully with healthy discussion to make sure things run smoothly.
LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
Our aim was to make sure that we minimize the use of paper and do not waste any resources so to accomplish that any of the charts used to make games for posters and art supplies have been kept aside to be used again when an event like this is conducted again to make sure these things are not used and discarded after just one use. We also used old newspapers when necessary to minimize paper wastage and make the event as sustainable as possible by using old decor that we reinvented according to our needs. We made sure that we cleaned and put waste according to recycling guidelines so that the support staff didn’t have to do the work again.
LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
We felt that the support staff deserved something they could enjoy and remember as we have with our school events. Like night outs, first-day celebrations, and fleas, something that makes them relive their childhood. I am so glad that we did this event successfully as the look of pure happiness on their faces is genuinely something that I could never forget, it was worth all the efforts. Dancing, playing games, Tug of war competitions, I had never seen the staff so free and joyful. When they came to know that we were running around planning for them, they were so surprised and that’s when I knew that these people deserve this event and so much more. We enjoyed so much having fun with them and playing games with them, even the on-day volunteers were so happy we did this.
evidence:
Photos from the event:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GvwDag8WKEjQhoL1_y721eNbNhfKpcWp