Bal mela, it is one of the events which makes me happy. Thousands of students from different government school come to our school have we get the opportunity to play with them. In this event we plan fun activities, arts and crafts, and dance for those students. Every year I volunteer in this event and this year I got the opportunity to be the core team member for this event as my CAS project. 

LO1 – Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth.

Being the core team member for this event we decided to manage different activities. My strengths being arts and crafts, I decided to manage the area of art and crafts but managing and leading a whole area on my own was not an easy task. I had to go to each stall and ensure everything is running smoothly which became very tiring and hectic for me. Managing the crowd was also not an easy task for which I had to distribute all of the children in batches and even work in some of the stalls to clear the crowd quickly. This showed me the areas of growth on which I need to work upon for my future events.

LO2 – Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills. 

Bal mela is a very huge event where thousands of students of different government schools come in FHS. We have to plan and ensure that we make this day the best day of their life. Planning and initiating such a huge event with my colleagues was a very difficult task because we had very less time and we had to plan everything from sending forms, assigning venues, finalizing the decorations, and the most difficult, managing the crowd. Completing all of this work was very hectic and tiring especially because we had to come early to school so that we could plan everything. After facing all of the challenges, the event was a success. Seeing those children happy and enjoying made me happy and more than that I developed skills like leadership skills, team management skills, and event management skills which will be very useful for me in the future.

LO3 – Initiate and plan a CAS experience.

I and my colleagues who were the core team members had to plan and initiate the entire event. We discussed about a rough idea that we have about the event and them got an approval from the coordinators. First we started enrolling the participants by sending a google form to the students of grade 7-to grade 12. After receiving the responses, we were assigned different activities and I being the head of arts and craft area, managed everything needed there. I began dividing the participants into the groups according to their choice of stall. Then after receiving the school names and number of children coming from the government schools, we made a flow of the event where we decided the starting point till the ending point for each school so that we can easily manage the crowd. We then decided the decorations, placements of the stalls, booked all of the pops we needed like a ferris wheel. We even arranged bus routes for the participants. After all of the planning was done, we started initiating the idea. We had to take approval for every aspect of the event from the coordinators so that there is no issue on the final day. The day had arrived, all of our planning, hard work, and dedication paid off when we saw those children enjoy Bal Mela.

LO4 – Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience.

We all were committed to make this event a success for which we decided to come early to school so that we can get more time in planning the event. We looked over every single detail and ensured that everything was perfect. We even personally mailed every volunteer to ensure their participation so that we don’t face any issue on the day of the event. Our commitment and hard work was what made this event go smoothly and made this day the possibly the most memorable day for those children. 

LO5 – Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively. 

Being the core team member for this event I had the responsibility of managing and executing the event with my team. This event would not have been possible without my team’s collaboration because we being a group of 5 students had to manage everything about this event for which we distributed tasks which made our work much more easier and faster. We all collaborated by managing venues in which we are good such as people like me who were good in arts were allocated to manage the art and crafts area, people good in sports and activities were assigned to manage sports and activities area, and people good good in dance were assigned to manage dance area. We were able to execute this event successfully only because of our effective communication, dedication and collaboration.

LO6 – Engagement with issues of global significance. (quality education sdg4)

This event made me realize that we all are very privileged to have quality education. As soon as the children from government school arrived, I could see the joy and excitement on their faces, I saw how small things made them happy. I realized that studying in an IB school, we have access to quality education which those children aren’t so events like bal mela is the least we can do to improve their education because education is not only about studying, quality education is preparing children for their future. We can organize more events like bal mela for those government school childrens so that they can also experience quality education which will help them a lot.

LO7 – Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions. 

Since we have all been so fortunate, we have never truly valued the things we have. As we grew older, paint tattoos, kid’s play areas, and other activities were so normal that we felt bored and demanded more. We have all always taken things for granted and at times even complained about them, rather than being grateful for what we have, but after seeing those kids, I understood that not everyone is fortunate enough to enjoy all of this. I could see how little things brought them such joy. This helped me realize that not everyone has the privilege of having what we have, therefore we should be happy and grateful for it.