C, A, and S
I had a six-day school-sponsored trip to Gujarat’s Dang district where I participated in a rural immersion program to learn about rural life. I engaged in a variety of activities throughout the trip that addressed all three CAS strands, including painting warlis, crafting bamboo vessels, mud lipan, shooting rifles, hiking, and more.
LO 1: Identify your strengths and develop areas for personal growth
My ability to create and my love of art were my strengths. Along with making other items out of flowers, leaves, and twigs, I could find around me, I truly liked painting the warlis.
LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.
Some of the activities on the trip were my firsts. I could not bring myself to do things like mud lipan which involved touching cow dung with bare hands. But, I realized that it is important to step out of my comfort zone and get uncomfortable so that I could better experience the life of rural people. Through this, I developed self-management skills. Some tasks involved communicating with villagers to understand their economic conditions and their lifestyle which helped me develop my communication and social skills.
LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.
For someone like me who is accustomed to the urban lifestyle, the rural immersion was quite a shock. There were times when I did not want to do some activities because they seemed gross to me or I was tired of them but instead of cribbing, I performed the activities throughout the 6 day trip and showed commitment.
LO5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.
This learning outcome was showcased majorly in the Warli painting. There was a huge wall assigned to us and we needed to paint on it. We divided ourselves into groups and started to paint the wall together. This gave opportunities for everyone’s creativity and painting skills to be shown and the painting was completed beautifully. Even during the activities that I did not want to perform, when I saw that my peers were doing it without any hesitance, it gave me motivation to do the activity myself. The benefit of this was that I was able to get out of my comfort zone by getting inspired by others.
LO6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
Poverty and lack of education are 2 major global issues. The people in the village are usually poor and satisfied with what little they earn. By using our communication and social skills, We interacted with the village people and understood their lifestyles. One day, we visited a school in which children from surrounding villages came to study and played games with them to make them happy.
