Community service was an event organized by my school where students from underprivileged schools came to fountainhead school for different activities such as dance, arts and crafts, ICT, Sports and Science. This lasted for about three consecutive weekends. This was a rejuvenating experience which led to many learning experiences for me even at a personal level. The goal was to introduce the young students of underprivileged schools to different extracurricular activities which would give them an idea about what interests them and what skills they have. Furthermore, they also get to socialize with other students and staff members which would be beneficial for them. I volunteered to teach the students about arts and craft as I also have a creative bent.
LO1 – Identify their own strengths and develop areas for personal growth
Volunteering with the underprivileged kids helped me realize my strengths in communication and patience. After explaining the instructions to the children, I also had to reiterate them and explain some of the steps individually and show how it was done with examples. There were also times when some of the younger ones needed a little more help and I learned to be patient and encouraging. Also, an area of personal growth I identified was to improve my vocabulary which sometimes became a barrier in explaining the process to them because they did not know the english or hindi meaning of some words which I was not aware about in my native language.
LO5 – Demonstrate the skill and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
The main skill that I learned during the community service was how to simplify things and how to change myself keeping in respect learners. I had to change my speaking style, my behavior and my explaining methods in front of the kids to make them understand everything easily. I had to also understand the signs they gave when they did not understand a specific step but hesitated to express that. This also came with collaboration, all the students in the group had different approaches to teaching, with seeing each other, we learned how to see things with different perspectives and how to explain them more effectively.
LO6 – Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.
While talking to different kids, I came across many kids from different backgrounds who had migrated with their parents and many of them were local. I gained a sense of diversity among them, even though they came from different places they mingled well together and had the same sense of gratefulness and respect for everyone they talked to. Apart from arts and crafts, we also talked to each other as we actively tried to make conversation with them to keep them entertained and let them know that we enjoyed talking to them. It also promoted intercultural understanding between us as we learned about different things from their cultures and backgrounds.
To conclude, community service was a fruitful experience with many eye opening experiences as we realized how we should be grateful for our privileges and learn how to pass our knowledge effectively to the needy. Lastly, to see the smiles on their faces after they made their creations made the whole experience worthy. We got to see the artistic potential in many kids and they were also excited to know how much they can do in arts and how good they are which could possibly spark interest in them which is a very important aspect of finding your own passion and to realize what you’re good at and what makes you happy.
