In my last summer vacation, I along with my cousins went to an orphanage named Arya Samaj to entertain and teach new stuff to the underprivileged children over there. The main reason behind this was that we get to do these activities everyday, so we wanted to share this with them too. There were around 49 children both boys and girls. Unfortunately all the children were not present at that time so they missed the activities which we did.
The learning outcomes which we achieved were:-
LO 1- Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
We had decided who will carry out which activity before arriving at the orphanage. Whoever was good at sports carried out the sports activities and similar for arts. We even decided to do it alternately, one day some people teach sports and on another day the same group teaches arts. Most of the girls preferred only arts and boys only sports, but we made it a compulsion to do both the activities. In this way both the underprivileged children and us would improve on our skills which we were weak in.
LO 2- Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken developing new skills
As I said before there were 49 children and we were too few to handle them all and we faced many other issues like lack of interest in both the children from the orphanage and us, but I made sure that these problems were resorted and did not play a role in ruining the activity. In this way I improved my communication skills as well as my leadership skills. These challenges tested us a lot and played a role in developing new skills.
LO 3- Initiate and plan a CAS experience
We had to be prepared for carrying out all the activities. To make sure this happened we planned everything before reaching the orphanage. We decided for how long we had to carry out each activity, then we made groups as to who will look after which activity, etc. It took us a week to complete all the planning.
LO 4- Commitment to and perseverance
As I mentioned before, we face a lot of challenges and most of the people didn’t want to participate in the activities. It was very difficult to handle them all, so we had to be very committed and persevered to the task at hand so that it would be completed successfully. We also faced another difficulty of communication as both the activities were not carried out at the same place, cricket at ground and art in the assembly hall. I convinced everyone to work as a team and stay persevered to the task.
LO 5- Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
Collaboration is a must when you are carrying out such tasks. Without teamwork I would have been able to finish the activities on time. There are a lot of benefits of working collaboratively. It is less time-consuming and everything is very easy to do. It also improves our communication skills. There were girls and boys both and girls would be more familiar with other girls so we distributed ourselves in groups according to that. Most of the girls were looked after my cousin sisters and the boys looked after by me and my cousin brothers.
LO 7- Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Before conducting the activities with the children over there, we had to make sure we had the permission to do so. Also we had to look after all the children because they were our responsibilities and that they did not get any injury. There were many small children who were also playing with us so there was a risk. We also had to see that no one used any slang language because the small children would learn it very easily.
Finally, it was great spending those 2 days with all the children and I would love to go there again. We also left some resources for them to play with like a football. We also gave them books and explained them the importance of studying. After the activities they all were very happy which made us feel satisfied.
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