Medicine drive
LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
One of the major strengths about this service as an action was the availability of medicine near me. Within the short radius from where I live I was able to collect extra generic medicines such as ; dolo, and paracetamol tablets which were available in abundance, this helped in the collection of tablets to distribute making the process smoother.
LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
A medicine drive needs to be well thought out, it’s imperative to have all research work ready, such as what places in my city require most help, lack the facility or money for purchasing medicines. This was a challenge, the areas near the part of the city where I lived seemed to have taken care of that sector of healthcare, due to which I had to collaborate with different people and communicate with them to understand what areas they thought were crucial to cover as there were no graphs or researches already available highlighting this issue. This helped me develop better communication skills and research skills in the process, it also helped me realise the importance of this drive and the extent of which it was needed in the city, especially with the changing weather and the constant spike and fall of the covid 19 Virus.
LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
To plan a CAS project is similar to any other experience. It requires brainstorming, finialsing ideas, making timelines and adhering to them. For the medicine drive, I first made a mind map to work out the importance of the service and its benefits in the current time, then I formed a timeline for the days I would go to collect medicines and the distribution process, selecting areas to distribute the medicine in, jotting down areas that need more of it in comparison to the others and writing what days to achieve the planned goals separately to manage my time effectively.
LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences and LO 5
This community service needed commitment and perseverance throughout the beginning to the end as planned. Process thoroughly was important , and so was the research. It was important that as many people as possible and in need get the medicine, this required putting in hours of time to the service, going from one location to the other collecting and distributing the medicine, to insure the success of this service i spent hours on primary and secondary research, interviews and articles, websites information on other medicine drives that have been conducted to acquire knowledge.My overall communication skills were tested, put to work and improved during this service along with the research skills, communicating with the people i was donating the medicine helped me not only understand the saying “ communication is the key” also implement it, using my native language Hindi was helpful although, speaking in gujrati was extremely helpful as it made the people feel connected and did not shy away from asking for aid which further helped achieving the success of this service.
LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
There are several hospitals, clinics and NGOs where people can donate their unused and unexpired medicines. During the peak of the second wave of Covid-19 in India, in April-May 2021, there was a surge in demand for certain medicines because of the huge number of affected people. The scarcity of medicines was high everywhere from a local to the global level and thus the significance of this drive was further increased. People have normal painkillers in abundance in India, for when there is any pain a pill is popped although not everyone is privileged enough and so the initiative of this medicine drive was taken. We also needed to raise awareness which we did door to door when collecting and giving the medicines.
LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Not being an expert in terms of medicine, once again research was of high value, making sure all medicines being collected and distributed were not expired and up to date, they were sealed well and stored in proper conditions, also only collection of those medicines were done which are available and allowed to be purchased without prescription and have almost no side effects when used, I also made sure to give detailed explanation as to how to store them , how to consume then and what times to make sure the whole process was safe. Only over the counter medicines were used.
