Recently in Trashion, my co-leader Amelia and I got to give a presentation to a group of grade 4s about sustainability in Fashion. We informed them with some key facts about the environmental impacts of fast fashion and how they could combat this issue themselves. It was a pleasant experience that got me to think more about my purpose in the EI and why our work matters. The grade 4s were curious and excited to learn from us which made me more grateful for having had the opportunity to give this talk. It was a little nervewrecking but it was definitely a moment of growth for me in my advocacy. It reaffirmed my commitment to care and compassion within the school community.
Category: Service
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Trashion – Term 2 to 3
Unfortunately due to unaccounted circumstances, we no longer have permission to set up a stall at the family festival. Instead, we are working towards new goals in Trashion. We recently welcomed in a new group of grade 9s who have all shown enthusiasm toward the EI and seem to be a great cohort to work with moving forward. I was a little upset to hear about being set back in our progress again as we had spent all of term 1 planning for a clothes/denim swap. However I learned from that experience that it is never too late to adjust your goals and continue to make progress. I feel encouraged seeing the energy from the grade 9s and overall, being in charge of goal setting and planning has allowed me to work on my leadership and organisation in a lot of aspects. I have developed my ability to bounce back from setbacks and continue to achieve my aims.
Here is a brainstorm that we did for the rest of the year during our first session of Term 2. We are working on making infographics on different topics we have researched online and then putting them onto our portfolio. We will also help out a Grade 10 CPERs project in a Denim swap that they plan to hold during the beginning of Term 3 where people in school can freely trade each other for denim pieces of clothing.
Updated: Unfortunately, the plan to support the G10 CPERs group did not pull through as the project did not reach completion. As of now, we are working on making tiny drawstring bags for the group Burnt Out as packaging for their sustainably made candles.
Over the year, I have been part of the activity, Wellness Buddies, which enabled me to develop my interpersonal skills and gain the opportunity to support a younger student on campus in Middle School. We’ve practiced active listening, paraphrasing, etc. As of now, I have been meeting with my grade 7 mentee for the last 2-3 months and everything has been rather successful. It has been mutually beneficial to work together and provide support through creating open dialogue. Looking forward to my future career aspirations, this activity is giving me the necessary skills that I am working to develop.
Being a member of the Equality Focus Group this year has been a good experience. We all completed our first major project while also working on something on the side; namely, a poster raising awareness about the conditions for LGBTQ+ individuals in Qatar during the period of the 2022 World Cup. Our first major project was making support videos for teachers, students and parents separately conveying important messages. The process was overall smooth with the script coming together easily, however I think that recording the audio to accompany the slideshow could have been done with more precision. Below is linked the slideshow, screen-recorded presentation that we delivered targeted at students in particular. Other smaller groups worked on the parent and teacher videos.
Moving forward, we are planning to hold a film screening on the 1st of March. We will provide popcorn as we show a movie called Fair Haven that raises LGBTQ+ themes of acceptance and other struggles faced. Alongside this, we are also trying to create posters raising awareness about queer topics of choice. I am looking forward to the rest of the year; I believe that our collaboration has gotten better this year and that we have been relatively on track with our goals and aims.
In Trashion, we have put together a proposal for our clothes swap that will likely take place in early February next year after the Chinese new year break. We are trying to coordinate this with the service office. Another thing we have been working on as well is creating packaging for Raw Beauty (another EI) to use for wrapping their soaps. I got to use a sewing machine today for the first time in order to help embroider the packaging. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XafHUPKbpP6HnKaHmm-ZShH9S39Ul9XC/view?usp=sharing
An update: we are instead going to hold our first clothes swap during the Family Fun Fair in March! An idea that we had for that clothes swap was to focus specifically on trading denim items. The production of denim clothing tends to have a hefty impact on the environment as it requires heavy amounts of dye and water. Through holding a denim swap, we aim to raise awareness about these impacts and also to sustainably share denim to give a pair of jeans for example a long life.
This year, I have been part of the Equality Focus Group which is in an initiative that raises awareness about LGBTQ+ issues and seeks to make the school a safer place for queer students. I have been part of this service since Grade 9 and I currently co-lead it. We are working towards making informative video content to share with varying members of the school community. We’ve split into smaller groups and in my group, we’re planning to create a video for students that further educates them on how to respect and create a safe space for LGBTQ+ students. Here is a link to our planning document.
I’ve enjoyed being part of this focus group so far and I am proud of the progress I have made with it over time starting out as a communications officer in grade 9.
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Trashion – Session 1
Today I began my role as co-leader of the environmental initiative, Trashion. I signed up for an EI leadership role and was assigned to Trashion in particular. I enjoyed getting to know the group (a relatively small, intimate cohort) and also setting our aims for the year. I am looking forward to getting to work and taking action. I think that our idea of the Clothes Swap is set up for success so I am excited for that hopefully in December. I think that this cause is very important and that we can all do better in terms of overconsumption and reducing that.