As we approach the end of the year, I am about to complete my IBDP years as well as my CAS journey. I started writing my CAS blogs at the start of 11th grade and have come a long way since then… due to unforeseen circumstances I had to alter and create CAS experiences according to my surroundings as well as circumstances. Due to COVID-19, my CAS journey started slowly as I had to do many of my experiences indoors, then during summer and the following 4 months when I was in Turkey I was able to do more physical and creative activities but could not participate in service as much since the rest of my peers and my service group were face to face education.
Over the two years of doing CAS I have developed a variety of skills and archived a lot of learning outcomes. I had set myself CAS goals at the beginning of grade 11 and was aiming to fulfill these CAS goals by the end of grade 12.
Creativity:
As a passionate painter who has been drawing and painting as well as taking courses since I was 10, I chose to practice my drawing and painting which I did quite a lot and fulfilled. Although I had many basic skills due to COVID and moving countries I could not practice painting as much. Once I arrived in Sri-lanka I was able to start practicing again, I was quite content with my acrylic painting skills which is why I mainly focused on oil painting for my CAS journey. Oil painting is quite challenging to work with as it takes way longer to dry, requires more layering and contrast of tones as well as having a very strong odor. Taking this next step and trying to learn how to work with oil painting did not only challenge me but also aided me in acquiring new skills. My mom is a very talented painter who has worked with oil painting for 20 years therefore with her help I was able to improve my skills significantly and achieve multiple learning outcomes such as (LO4: commitment to and perseverance, LO2: Challenge & skills and LO1: Strength & growth) Midway through the year I branched my knowledge on creativity not only by practicing skills but also learning new art forms from different cultures like Mandla from Hindu and Buddhist cultures. Towards the end of the year, I also branched into digital art as I did a lot of editing and digital designs for my service and extracurricular activities. I also joined the yearbook for designing the senior pages, which helped me improve my digital art and design skills as well as come up with creative themes for this year’s senior pages.
Service:
For service when I created my goals I was in lockdown and was not participating in face-to-face education. Therefore my goal was to adopt a kitten and help the other kittens in the shelter get adopted as well. Which I did at the beginning of grade 11 but fortunately halfway through 11 th grade service groups became available online and then later on next year I was able to return to face-to-face education and continue my service group “Girls for Girls. Which I became heavily involved with once I was able to attend face-to-face meetings. Towards the end of the two years, my course of action for service changed drastically as I began organizing and participating in many fundraisers for my service and planned women’s week with my fellow service peers. Especially in 12 th grade when I settled and got used to the routine of face-to-face education, I was very committed to my service and was genuinely interested. As my EE and my Cas projects were also related to my service, I was in the service “girls for girls” for two years but was especially active this year. Girls for girls is a service that works with women’s rights advocacy and sexual assault survivors in Srilanka. When we were online I participated in online debates and discussions as well as created digital posters and videos for the daily bulletin. However, there were many challenges as we were unable to work with the girls at the Emerge Lanka Shelter, which was the crux of our service group. Thus we decided to make a difference in our own school community. This was much more effective once we had transitioned into in-person school, as we made a combination of videos to raise awareness, and most notably, a highly successful and eventful international women’s week, with a series of school-wide activities, and fundraisers, protests, and events. This service did not only educate me on women advocacy specifically in Sri Lanka but I hope to have also educated our OSC community as well, over the course of the last two years in girls for girls I demonstrated the learning outcomes; LO6 (Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance), working for women’s rights, LOI3 (Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience), LO: 7 (Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions), and LO:5 (Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively), working with my service group.
Activity;
Lastly for activity, as I was in lockdown I aimed to do at home workouts and be able to run 3 km easily, although joining school sports teams only became available towards the end of 12 th grade as I found myself preparing for exams I found it difficult to participate, during summer and the beginning of 12 th grade when I was in Turkey a lot of activity opportunities came along. I did a lot of hiking and running/jogging which actually aided me in achieving my goal of running at least 3 km easily. I even went further than my goal and was able to run 5 km continuously. Although I would have liked to participate in school teams, in the future the skills that I have learned which are both mental and physical will aid me in my future journey with keeping myself active and healthy. The highlight of my activity for my CAS journey was the marathon I ran in Turkey across the Bosphorus Bridge. This marathon is held annually and due to my long stay in Turkey, I was able to participate in it. I trained for this marathon for a long time as I jogged every morning and tried to increase my stamina. My goal was to run the marathon without any breaks, and although I did take one break in between I am very proud of being able to successfully complete this marathon along with achieving my CAS goal. Specifically, the skills I learned were endurance, strengthening for the physical aspect, and commitment and perseverance for the mental aspect. Through my CAS activity of completing a marathon and doing at home workouts, I demonstrated the learning outcomes; (LO1: Strength & growth), (LO2: Challenge & skills) (LO5: Showing perseverance and commitment) in addition as I was training with other friends who were also going to participate in the marathon I did occasionally plan hikes and workout session for all of us which enabled me demonstrating the( LO3: Initiative & planning) as well.
Overall my CAS journey has been very insightful as I learned a lot of new skills and improved myself in many ways. Although I did not exactly follow some of my goals I believe I improved my journey by participating in a real service group and branched my knowledge as well. If it was not for COVID-19 I believe I could have been more active. On the bright side summer leave and the fact that I was in Turkey for 6 months enabled me to achieve some of my goals in a high capacity. Everything I learned from CAS will help me in the future and even the challenges will help me to understand difficult situations in an easier manner for the future which is close approaching.