We organized/hosted a flea market or just a festival/event kind of a thing where small businesses could exhibit their and people coils have a fun time. In Surat there is not much to do but to go to restaurants/cafes, so we wanted to organize an event with a live concert where people could come to have a good time with friends and family. Therefore, we named the event “Vistosa” which means colourful to make it a joyous place and uplift one’s soul. Through this event we aimed to support the schools which help kids with special needs by donating the profits we earn.
- LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
We were huge risk takers while planning this event since we had never done something like this before on a small or big scale. It was a challenge to get everything in order, reaching out to people who want to put up their stalls, advertising our event, making photo booths for the event, etc since everything was a first time for us. To overcome this challenge we took help from event managers, divided work between the 8 group members and just went with the flow to put everything together. I am glad I took up this challenge as it made me learn a lot of new things throughout the process and made me learn the hard work and time it takes to actually put up an event. Through this process, I definitely learned time management skills, improved my socializing skills and communication skills, as well as learned how to organize an event at such a large scale.
- LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
I don’t think I am usually an organized person, which made it hard for me to manage time school assignments and give time to this experience. But the process did make me learn time management skills and its importance. I personally felt planning as well as initiating, both of them were difficult, since we were 8 people, we had a lot of contradicting ideas and style tastes on what we wanted the event to look like. However this made us learn to compromise and come to a common consensus. Initiating was hard because even though we had a plan in our mind we still couldn’t picture what the event would turn out to be and if it will be successful or not.
I certainly think planning and initiating an event in the future would be simpler due to the contacts built through this event as well as the new things we have learnt through the process.
- LO 4 : Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
I strongly believe that you need perseverance to make it through setbacks you will most certainly experience while doing something new. In this case, none of us had the experience to plan such a big scale event, which evoked the feeling of giving up or brought the thought that it would be impossible to plan something like this or there is no chance of it being successful. We also had a lot of small and big disagreements, but what made this event possible and successful was our constant commitment and perseverance to the event.
- LO 5 : Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
Working in a group for me varies every time, though I think it is easy for me but at the same time
I am a perfectionist which sometimes makes it annoying/hard to compromise for me to work in groups. In this case, working in a group made the planning and initiating way simpler. To plan such big scale events is not an one individual’s work but a group task. Working collaboratively helped us divide the work, save time as well as get the best outcome since we divided the work by the person’s specialization. In our event, teamwork not only led us to succeed as a team, but also helped form new bonds with people and make new friends. It also helped improve our communication skills.
- LO 6 : Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
The purpose of this fundraiser event was to address one of the sustainable development goals, quality education. Education is one of the most powerful vehicles for sustainable development. It is important for students with disabilities to also have the same opportunities like us and should get a chance to build their place in this world and it can only happen with the right education and training. Supporting global issues like quality education by donating the profits was a small step to bigger change by us and being a part of it made me feel contented and influenced me to do more good in the world
- LO 7 : Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
One of the ethical issues that concerned us while planning for this event was the time we were conducting it. The coronavirus cases were starting to increase again during that week however, the event was continued with maximum safety. The crowd was increasing at a rapid speed on both days, which made us close the entries for almost 30 mins to get it under control. The government had allowed up to 600 people and we were trying our best to be in the limit. I think we handled the crowd very well during the rush hour and the event passed safely without any problems.
In a nutshell, the event was one of the best experiences I had. I believe we all were huge risk takers while planning such a big scale event for the first time, but all the risk and time given was worth it. We had over 1200 people both days and seeing the event being so successful was overwhelming. It felt amazing to be a part of something so big handled by a group of girls studying in 11th grade.
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