For the service component of my CAS, this year I participated in the animal shelter cleanup project. We collaborated with nature club surat and helped clean, feed and maintain the shelter of domestic animals. in this experience I helped clean shelters of guinea pigs, chickens, hens, ducks, fishes, emos, and other animals.
LO5: Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
Arriving the facility, we first took a tour. The whole shelter house was very huge. Our group of students was tasked with chopping vegetables for animals. A variety of vegetables were to be fed to the animals. Working as a team collaboratively for 4 consecutive weekends cleaning shelters of the facility, helped us clean multiple shelters in short time. Dividing tasks as per our team members proficiency in various skills helped complete the task with good accuracy at the same time in a short amount of time. This experince taught me the essence of teamwork and its importance, especially during field work.
LO6 – Engagement with issues of global significance & LO7: Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions
2 of our SDG’s are “life on land” and “life below water”. Helping cleaning the shelter of these animals and feeding them helps make a small contribution to such global issue of such significance. Modern urbanization, deforestation has lead to such domestic animals on roads, population of animals like stray dogs, pigeons have skyrocketed due to us creating an imbalance in the ecosystem. Such actions by our society have led to many domestic animals on the verge of extinction, it is our responsibility to make things right. If we cannot directly alter society’s way of living, we should at least minimize our impact on such issues. My contribution to cleaning animal shelter doesn’t make an impact on a huge scale, however it does contribute to doing something meaningful in the right direction .
Along with cleaning, I also participated in painting the shelters and feeding animals. This made me realise the conditions through which certain animals have to go through and how some are on the verge on extinction. With this CAS experience I realised that action is needed, that too on a large scale. After working with animals for more than 10 hours, this experience has encouraged me to do something pertaining to this issue in the future, to contribute to this global issue of such significance.
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