Dance and Zumba Season 1 reflection


In this service, we work with people who have had issues in the past that have to watched under careful supervision in confined environments.  We went to Hougang Care Centre and onto their website (link attached) to learn more about the centre and about the members that will be joining us. Although it wasn’t extremely specific information, we were able to understand that they require time to do things they enjoy and meet people outside the confines of the centre as they are not allowed to go out very often or on their own. By giving them an opportunity to learn dance and Zumba with UWC is a way for them to express themselves and relax. We have to keep this in mind for the future when we plan out dances for them. We have to make sure that they are able to keep up with the pace and instructions. We also learnt that not all of them speak English so we expect there to be a language barrier. However, we plan to overcome this by being conscious about our word choice, to ensure we don’t use complicated words, and by speaking slow, in order to make ourselves more understandable to them. We have planned to divide up into pairs or threes and alternate every session, this way everyone has a chance to lead the service and have a chance to plan and arrange the activities. Initially, we decided to choreograph simple dances as we could alter steps when we feel that they are getting confused or tired. However, after trying this, we realised that a lot of us don’t have experience with dancing and choreographing, we just have a passion for it. Because of this, many of us couldn’t choreograph dances. We then had to find another way to get them to dance, so we decided on using Zumba videos online and play them on the projector for them to follow.

 

Furthermore, we made a doc in which we put in what activities we were planning to do, including links of the videos we want to use and the names of the people leading. We chose to make this very detailed by including when there would be breaks and for how long, as well as the extra resources that are needed so that we can make arrangements before the session.

PW:planning (LO3, LO5, LO7)


We are a group of 6 students that are going to Taipei for hiking and creative experiences. I am personally responsible for the creative part of our trip and I have arranged 2 things (cooking and pottery) for us to do when we get there. We divided our group into different parts so as to ensure efficiency in all areas so we have 2 people on logistics that book flights and hotels and we have our activity coordinator. By dividing the group up into these parts, we have distinguished roles to play that we have to do and there is no question about who has to do what. We are also able to get on top of each other about deadlines since we are responsible. Furthermore, not everyone in my group is very close to one another so we have planned bonding activities which include ice skating or having dinner together to do before we gon on the trip. This builds our relationship and allows us to become more comfortable with one another before the trip itself so as to avoid some conflicts or to ensure quality experiences with friends. Up till now, we have been on top of every deadline and have been constantly double-checking our decisions with Ms Toth to ensure the best experience for us. We have also been working very closely with our supervisor as well and making sure to run our decisions through her and using her advice on Taipei as she knows the place. We have our parents actively involved in our decision making and they help by providing advice on how to book flights or hotels due to their experience.

 

Additionally, we are able to work alongside our PW coordinator as well as our PW supervisor to create the best possible trip. In order to ensure this, we had to create extremely detailed plans for our days in Taiwan as shown in the picture above.

Moreover, we CCed our supervisor in any emails to and from our guide in Taiwan while planning which hikes we wanted to do and deciding the details such as meals and transport for the day. We thought of choosing a supervisor which would have knowledge of where we were going, therefore, she could advise us on the do’s and don’t’s. We wanted to ensure that we do not culturally offend anyone with our behaviour as we are aware that different countries have different rules of respect. We have made sure that our plan is approved by every party related to the trip including our parents, our supervisor, the PW coordinator, our guide and each other. This meant that we had to abide by the project week rules which was a checklist (shown in the picture on the right).

Hougang Care Centre Initial Reflection


I have signed up for a service with the Hougang Care Centre and we visited it to receive an outline of their mission as well as the reason they need our aid. This really allowed us all to have a much better understanding of their environment as we will be able to keep that in mind when we work with them. We saw that they lived in rather constricted conditions which contrasts to the environment in UWC. Therefore, we keep in mind that we cannot behave and say things we usually would with our friends and teachers with them as they have a different mindset. We have to be able to provide a comfortable environment for them in order to help them and make them feel more inclined to participate in our activities. Furthermore, we learned that not all of them speak English, because of this, we were able to predict that miscommunication would be common and so we wouldn’t be impatient with them. Any important information about the experience. From this experience, I want to be able to widen my understanding of people from different backgrounds and ethics in order to diversify my mindset.  I also hope to build relationships with my peers in the service along. with the members of the care centre who attend the service.

 

KAHAANI’19 FINAL REFLECTION


 

Kahaani is an event run by a Global Concern (GC) group, and the money generating is donated to the people in India. Therefore, these performances were of global significance since us participating and inviting our family to watch us was able to help multiple people in India which I personally felt was the spirit of the event.

I was able to distinguish between my strengths and weaknesses as I knew that dancing was a passion. Through the process of learning the dance, I felt very comfortable with performing and I realised that it was a strength. However, I realised that I would show up to rehearsals late sometimes which made me less organised. I was also very willing to help others when they didn’t understand how to do a certain step which really helped my develope on my communication skills since we were working with people that we did not necessarily know. The rehearsals were during school time and in between the months of a lot of work. I felt that I showed commitment and perseverance by coming to rehearsals and not prioritising other things since it was a commitment I chose to make.

 

I also worked collaboratively with many people I have not met before and I got the opportunity to get to know them and perform with them. Building those relationships through the process allowed me to look forward to rehearsals and have people to rely on when I need help with learning the dance. Furthermore, since Kahaani is an Indian based performance, we had to understand the ethics and respect the Indian costumes that we were wearing.

 

 

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