Now that my DP experience is coming to an end, it is time to look back at the past 18 months and reflect on my initial goals. At the very start of my DP journey, I created my first CAS post, unsure of how it should be structured or what it should contain. Luckily, this uncertainty went away with time, drawing a parallel to our situation alongside the pandemic. My first CAS post contained all the goals I had for my DP journey of creativity, activity, and service.

CREATIVITY

Lo1 – Identify your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth

SGA Meeting Zoom Calls

In my first CAS post, I wrote about my goals for creativity, recognizing this was an area where I needed to grow in, especially going into the DP years without a creative group 6 subject. My first goal was to be a member of the SGA, as it required creativity for brainstorming and coming up with new ways to make the campus spirited and raise funds. I was able to accomplish this as I was elected grade representative for the SGA in DP1, offering my creativity during the pandemic. It was especially challenging during the pandemic to organize events and spirit weeks while staying safe due to constant cancellations and the limitation of communicating with the community solely online. As a result, it allowed me to grow my creativity skills, forcing me to come up with fundraising and spirit week ideas that could be done online to keep the gecko spirit up.

Lo2- Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

I also highlighted how I wanted to create 1- 2 artworks during my CAS journey, which I was able to achieve during DP2 as I created 3 digital artworks during the peak of the pandemic. The CAS post can be seen here, in which I discuss the process of this experience. I was able to demonstrate a challenge undertaken through this as I challenged my creativity skills, developing the skill of producing digital art. This was challenging as I had not participated in a hands-on creative activity for an extended period of time. However, this experience was positive for me as I was able to recognize that some skills can be developed by undertaking a challenge, whether it be on a small or large scale. Not only was I able to dive into my art skills, but I was able to feel satisfaction at undertaking this challenge and attempting something new without the pressure of having to be good at it.

ACTIVITY

Lo4- Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

Friendly match against CIS

Over the course of these two years, I showed commitment and perseverance in maintaining fitness. My main goal was to run 5km in under 40 minutes, which I was able to do here. By the end of this experience, I was able to run 7km, which showed me that my commitment had paid off. At the start of DP, I also highlighted how I wanted to participate in afterschool football, as I had been participating in SAISAs during the years before the pandemic. Unfortunately, SAISA’s did not come back yet, however, for the past few months, we were able to play a few games with other schools on Tuesdays. This allowed me to show commitment to activity, as I participated in the after-school activity each week, making an attempt to participate in the activities that were available that were closest to my initial goal. However, I did not limit myself to running and football, as I was sure to keep surfing and sailing throughout the year whenever possible.

SERVICE 

My service goals are all orientated around my service group, Room To Read. I wanted to show my commitment to this service group, and develop my skills as a leader of the group. I also wanted to demonstrate the benefits of working together, as this is what I found made the largest contribution to progressing towards our goal. Throughout the past two years, I have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of progress we were able to make as a group. We not only grew closer to our partner school, be it even led me to my CAS project of initiating a secondary bookstore.

Lo3- Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

Presenting our idea to Dr. Kleiss

I was able to initiate a CAS project, coming up with the idea to make use of our second-hand donated books from the OSC community. Working with Jaya, we were able to form a plan on how to set up a second-hand bookstore in the school, which would use up the donated books and provide the service with a stable and consistent fundraiser. I was able to demonstrate taking initiative on this idea, as we proposed the idea to my service and Dr. Kleiss to get the gears in motion. We were able to recognize an area of growth for both the OSC community and our service, and a need to use up the abundance of donated books my service received. With starting this project, especially before ending our last year of DP, we hope to pass this project on to the future Room To Read Leaders – Eleez and Thevuni – to leave behind a final initiative. We hope this CAS project will help set up the future leaders of this service and give them something to start with if they see fit. This initiative will not only allow opportunities for the Room To Read service, but other services such as Housing for Habitat have already started participating in the construction of the store. This project has taught me how easy it can be to start developing an idea into a reality, especially with the help of others.

Lo5- Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

The CAS project and my service group allowed me to demonstrate the benefits of working collaboratively on a project. Especially for the CAS project, choosing and working with a partner showed me the benefits of working with multiple people for a common goal. For example, my partner Jaya who is more artistic took lead in the creativity for this project. She designed the posters for this project to advertise our upcoming second-hand book store, which we were able to print out and publish around the school and on the daily bulletin board. Additionally, working in my service group and dividing up the work took the load off of everyone individually, making completing tasks such as organizing book and cookies sessions much more efficient. Not only was service an area that developed my collaborative skills, but being part of the SGA group and the afterschool football team allowed me to work with others as a collective. This connects to the concept of emergent properties, as I realized the importance of every individual in a group and their impact on making the larger whole function properly.

Lo6- Demonstrate engagement with issues of global importance

Kids at Kegalle receiving their stationery packages

Taking part in Room to Read has allowed me to demonstrate engagement with issues of global importance, as our main goal deals with helping others in the local community. More specifically, participating in service made me realize how goals should be flexible, and sometimes it is more important to meet the needs of a partner school than focus on a specific goal you may have. For example, our partner school communicated the need for stationary, which does not have much to do with setting up libraries. However, prioritizing the needs of our partner schools is important, as engaging with issues of global importance varies.

Lo7- Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

Throughout CAS, I was able to consider the ethics of choices and actions, especially for service. Primarily, my CAS project exhibits an awareness of ethics of choices, as our book store deals with selling used books to the community. This is more sustainable as the books do not get thrown out as waste, yet get ‘recycled’ back into the community and to our partner school. For service, we even dived into the concept of working with a corporate sponsor to upcycle old buses into libraries, using used books in the process to spread the joy of reading and minimize waste. Additionally, throughout the borderlands trip, I was exposed to the concept of considering the ethics of choices in relation to the planet, as we made it an effort to reduce our waste and not leave behind anything that we brought into the area.

Canyoning