It is safe to say, my CAS project journey did not end up taking the path I had initially intended it to. Rashmi and I partnered up to complete our CAS projects together as we had very similar goals in mind. Initially we had plans to go on a radio and talk about waste management, but also global warming as an overarching theme. Given our background in relation to this topic we felt that we would be suitable speakers and we were actually thrilled about the opportunity. It is quite known in our grade that Rashmi and myself are overachievers, so of course we had to add another component to the project: hosting a workshop at a local school regarding global warming and what steps can be taken to help the situation. We had set dates and we also created lesson plans/ scripts around November of 2019. This was poor planning from our end as we did in fact underestimate the intensity of academic rigor in November. Each week we were assigned IA after IA on top of the college applications we were struggling to fill out amongst the service hours and after school activities we were trying to balance. Essentially, we had no time. Before we knew it, it was already December and this was way past the timeline we had decided to complete the project. This meant that the radio talk show opportunity was ‘expired’, so we had to re-plan to take another route which we were fine with. Hence, we decided that we could host a film evening where we present, “30 minutes to save the world”  by Amir Zakeri. That was a success and I have already written a blog post on this event which can be seen through this link. In conjunction with this we decided to still follow through the local school workshops via my contact at Vishaka Vidayala (a local girls school in Colombo, Sri Lanka). This plan did not fall through either as there was very poor communication with the person we were organizing the event with. Every time we were available they weren’t and I would ask to set meetings with them and they would not cooperate to make this process any smoother. Then again, before we knew it, it was mocks week. Stressed out by that we chose to drop our CAS project for a while. After that strenuous week we decided to scratch everything we had done and to start from square one with reasonable and achievable goals. Earlier we were too keen on attempting to focus on global topics on a national level. Yes, we were acting local, but not in a well thought out way.

After spending some time pondering, I remembered how our service group had the intentions of creating stickers to sell and make funds off to be contributed to our annual sterilization and vaccination camp. I shared my idea with Rashmi who felt that it would be a smart goal for us to accomplish. Finally we had got it right. For this project, we started off by brainstorming some ideas for what stickers we could produce and who our target audience would be. We knew that we were going to donate our stickers to Care For Paws, so we wanted to make them about animal rights and dogs. Like wise we knew our target audience was to be OSC’s secondary school, after some time spent observing the secondary students we noticed the VSCO trend and how kids liked having trendy stickers on their laptops and water bottles. Hence, we wanted to create stickers that would be used in a similar manner. Which is why, when we were brainstorming we were jotting down ideas that aligned with this VSCO aesthetic.

Once we had our ideas, we had to put them onto paper. One Saturday afternoon we met at our favorite cafe, Cafe Noire, to work on designing the stickers. We sat at the cafe for about three hours sketching, drawing, erasing and redrawing the stickers. We decided to design three stickers each to ensure that we were both contributing. Rashmi created the following: ride no die sticker, dogs>people sticker, no monkey business sticker. I created the following: Care For paws logo sticker, animal rights that is the tea sis sticker and surfing beach dog sticker. By the end of the session we were left with six drawings for potential stickers which we were both super proud of, finally it felt like we were doing the right thing and walking down the right path. That following week on a Wednesday we agreed to stay after school and color the stickers in the art room, as they have high quality color pencils that would give our stickers that extra touch. With xxxtentacion playing int he background we were able to complete the coloring within two hours. It was a fun time as Rashmi is not the most experience when it comes to color palettes, blending and art in general, so I spent a while teaching her and laughing with her at her work. It was safe to say it was fun work that we both enjoyed stress free.

Using a scanning application on my iPhone we were able to scan the stickers and make them digital. Now we have the stickers completed and I have a meeting set with Ms. Mora to get them printed. This way Care For paws can print more of the stickers and sell them to earn more funds for the annual sterlization and vaccination camp. Service can be trendy and service is for everyone, thus, we wanted our stickers to reflect that. It takes a different perspective on the problem, a refreshing perspective. With the CAS project now being in the past, wow, just wow, did Rashmi and I go in circles, but then again, it was all part of the learning process.

 

Disclaimer: due to Covid-19 and quarantine Rashmi and I were unable to print the stickers and donate them to Care For Paws. We will be donating the sticker designs so that in the near future Care For Paws can print them and fundraise money for any of their events.