To start this blog off, Happy International Women’s day!

CAS project is a major part of one’s senior year in the International Baccalaureate program. After considering a myriad of ideas, I decided to finalize my decision of collaborating with my service group – girls for girls. Before I get into what my service and CAS project’s objective is, I would like to convey why I chose this idea out of all the others. My initial idea was to plan an initiative where I would get sanitary pads in the bathrooms so that girls could access it easier. Although this idea seemed smart initially, after consulting with professionals such as the school doctor, I realized that this might lead to destruction of the pads or people taking too many. In addition, there was no one to fund the cost for these sanitary pads so after overall consideration of all factors, I decided to come up with a new and more efficient/planned out idea.

An idea that I came up with was a “kindness wall” which I initially thought would be greatly beneficial to the school community. Upon more thought, I recognized that doing this with my service group would be a better idea so that we could work together to spread positivity. My service, girls for girls, is a school-based community organization that strives to spread awareness about feminism and women empowerment. In the past, this service group has worked with Emerge Lanka (TW : a support organization for sexual assault survivors) and hosted events to show support and raise funds for them.

This year, I wanted to implement the positivity/kindness wall idea into my CAS project but I wanted to do more than this. Therefore, while we were brainstorming ideas, we came up with the idea to host a set of educational and fun events this week. To commemorate women’s history, we decided to plan women’s week instead of just one day. This would fall under both the creativity and service categories. After pitching my idea of a positivity wall, the group loved the idea. In addition to this, I created a facebook account for girls for girls as a social media incentive to spread awareness and support the OSC community as well as my service group. Although my posts were well thought out, not many people of my age don’t use facebook. This was a problem so after consideration, I decided to switch to instagram. This social media platform is more commonly used by students my age so it worked out better than facebook. As of now, the username for the official girls for girls instagram is @oscgirlsforgirls ! Make sure to follow please #selfpromo <3

This week is women’s week. I have been making posts on instagram by taking pictures and video footage of all the events we have been hosting allowing me to become the social media manager for girls for girls. Through these activities, we hope to make a difference in the school community – change is change, be it small or big 🙂

Attached below are some pictures taken by me from this week so far:

Learning outcomes observed: 

1. Strength & growth
Students are able to see themselves as individuals with various skills and abilities, some more developed than others, and understand that they can make choices about how they wish to move forward.

3. Initiative & planning
Students articulate the stages from conceiving an idea to executing a plan for a CAS experience or series of CAS experiences. This may be accomplished in collaboration with other participants. Students may show their knowledge and awareness by building on a previous experience, or by launching a new idea or process.

4. Working collaboratively with others
Collaboration can be shown in many different activities, such as team sports, playing music in a band, or helping in a kindergarten. At least one project, involving collaboration and the integration of at least two of creativity, action and service, is required.

5. Showing perseverance and commitment
Students demonstrate regular involvement and active engagement in CAS activities, and accept a share of the responsibility for dealing with problems that arise in the course of activities.

6. Global engagement
Students are able to identify and demonstrate their understanding of global issues, make responsible decisions, and take appropriate action in response to the issue either locally, nationally or internationally. (for example, environmental concerns, caring for the elderly).

7. Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Students show awareness of the consequences of choices and actions in planning and carrying out CAS experiences. Ethical decisions arise in almost any CAS activity (for example, on the sports field, in musical composition, in relationships with others involved in service activities).