Experience – Service , Activity

Studying in MYP has helped me understand a lot more about environmental sustainability and what’s the importance of creating a sustainable environment. I feel every Individual should someday give society something in return for what society has given them. “ Cleanliness” is something I feel is very important as it helps create a sustainable, clean environment, and even reduce the chances of diseases being spread like Malaria, Chicken Gunia. I along with my friends decided to clean Dumas Beach, and do our part of contributing to the society. Through this we intend to bring awareness amongst us and others watching us and even clean stuff like Plastic bags , Wafer packets , bottles etc. As most of them are non-biodegradable and will lie there for years. 

Learning outcomes-

LO2 – The challenge I undertook was cleaning beaches in front of people who feel this task is funny, and I felt at the start that if I do this task in front of them they would laugh at me or even click my photos which would later on make me a joke. Still I was courageous and went ahead with this task to erase this mentality of the society, if I would have stepped back at that time then I would have always felt that I had not taken the ethical decisions of cleaning the environment.

LO4 – Shame was the factor which made it difficult to commit for this activity and commitment was an integral part of this activity as this is something serious as it’ s a service to the society , we were thanking the society for what it has given us and helping the society by cleaning it. It’s important to be committed and persistent but it’s sometimes difficult to be as sometimes you have your own concerns against which you battle , but it’s your responsibility to find the right path , like I did cleaning the beach.

LO5 – I collaborated with my friends for this task and we together cleaned the beach to a greater extent. Working together helped me even fight the above challenges as it made me believe that I am not the only one in the activity of providing service to the society. Teamwork was very important as we had to decide the areas each individual will clean or what each pair will clean. And we were successful in our mission as we had good team work which led to our success.

LO6 – The issue I showed engagement onwards was “Plastic” as plastic is a non biodegradable material it’s important that these things should not lay on beaches as it makes beaches look dirty and even animals on beaches consume them which impacts their health. I tried to clean big chunks of plastic present on beaches. The sustainable development goals I supported were 14,15. Which are life below water and life above land as I saved animals above land from watching harmful waste and even the animals below water as all this waste even goes in water. We even saved the ecosystem from these harmful materials.

LO7 – I recognized that it was we the humans behind all the dirt and mess on beaches and made the ethical decision of cleaning it and it was affecting my life indirectly and  the action of cleaning the beach helped me solve the issue.

This was a very good experience for me because it helped me develop my personality as an individual and fight against shame and help me counter shame and make ethical decisions. The learner profile I developed here was mainly “ open minded “ as I didn’t think about what the people there would think about me , I just did what I felt was right and was important. The next time I will go for beach cleaning I will take more people with me so that we collect more waste and create more awareness about this, and for that I will use social media platforms to make people aware of this , so that they can join me if they wish to. All in all it was an experience to remember.

Evidences