I participated in the Race To Embrace 1.0 event which was held in 11th grade. There were numerous sessions throughout the year 2022-2023. I was very proud of myself for experiencing personal growth out of the bumps of life. These sessions were so interesting because every time there were new guests invited, we had a lot of fun. When I came to grade 12, the same event was conducted and I had an opportunity to become a part of R2E 2.0 in the Core Committee. Since it’s a long-term project with 7-8 sessions, I had been in the logistics team to help plan our sessions.
LO1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
Being an extrovert, at times I fail to spend time alone, hence this event was a wonderful opportunity to be in the core committee and work with people for a longer period. Every week we have meetings and planning regarding our sessions. So being in this project, I felt that there were so many peers I could go and talk to, and share my feelings and ideas regarding anything. It was easy to identify my strength, which is communicating with new people. This year there were many participants compared to R2E 1.0. During sessions, our role was to interact with them in groups and try to share thoughts on different themes. I was very excited to communicate with new people every time, including the guests. I was able to overcome my weakness by working on this project.
LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
During this CAS project, I have been able to develop a lot of skills such as communication, patience, and self-management
The most challenging thing was to manage and arrange resources for our participants because there were around 50, so it was difficult to estimate the resources required. Also to maintain the decorum we had to manage a larger number of participants amongst 20 volunteers. Hence, I developed communication skills by communicating with the participants through instructing them. Patience was necessary throughout the sessions because there were sensitive discussions at points that were not common. Also, there were so many people sharing their opinions and views so I developed patience. Self-management skills were developed during the event because I learned how to manage things in different situations.
LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
I was in the logistics team, wherein my role was to organize the resources and plan the sessions. I had a few other members in my team, we estimated the number of participants and accordingly ordered resources. The most difficult part was, when we ordered the resources, not everyone was present on that day. So there were a lot of resources which were not. This event taught me how people organize events on a large scale, they have to manage so many things. However, R2E was small scale and teachers helped a lot. It is important to know how events are planned and initiated because in the future it may help if there are family functions or a birthday event. This event gave me an insight into my future.
LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
I am in 12th standard and during the event planning there were many meetings that we had to attend. Since, in IBDP we have so many assignments and work to complete. So at times, it was difficult to be a part of meetings and give time. However, I had attended almost all the meetings and was present on the day of both the events. The commitment was required throughout the event because it is a long-term project. Meaning there are so many sessions which are going to be held. According to me, showing preservation and commitment is necessary for the event organizers because if they back out in between, then the event might not go as well as planned because every member of our team has some or other strengths.
LO5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
I think working in a group has always been easy for me because the strength of the team rises which makes the event plan better. Throughout the event, I developed communication skills, because at first, I was not a good speaker, meaning it was difficult for me to approach people in my team. However, with time I started communicating as it was necessary for completing the task assigned to our team. It is important to work collaboratively, it helps the event to be successful. Not only that, but it makes group members feel more connected. So if there were to be any problems, one could easily approach others by communicating.
LO6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
Good health and well-being is a major global issue that is often overlooked. This event specifically focuses on mental well-being for students, who are often in a race to achieve high grades and get into good universities.Meanwhile, they take up so much stress, and it makes difficult to enjoy in present.This event is basically a space, where guests are invited and they talk about their real life problems and timelines of their life, it helps us to understand that there are plenty of things we are currently not focusing upon. People are often running after fame, money, or other things, but it is important to pause and reflect on your life and find solutions to your problems. This event helps to improve mental well-being by providing a space for students to discuss their real-life problems in a practical and supportive way.
During the Race to embrace 2.0 program, I developed the learner profiles open-minded and caring. The program’s uncommon discussions helped me think of different life situations and appreciate kindness as the main theme. I realized that if there is no reason for hating each other, then there should be no reason for loving each other either. This realization helped me become a more caring person, and I am always willing to help those in need. These are two of the major learner profiles I developed, but there are many other skills I acquired during the program. This program helped all the participants to grow positively as well, and also had reflection in the form of letters, from that insight we the Core committee were able to identify a positive change within the participants. Since this reflection only discusses two of the sessions we have completed so far, we are able to successfully complete the event. If we were given an option to change, we would have planned the sessions even more better. However we already focused on making the sessions more fruitful by reflecting from R2E 1.0, in this project we added more things to make the sessions fun by hands-on activities and music performances and much more, but since there is always a scope of improvements we would have planned the event better in some areas. I am confident that I will continue to learn and grow from this project from upcoming sessions.
Evidence:-
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CEYyQw9H5wl33QS__tusre4LwW2K42ay