Project Week is a trip traditionally taken by students at my school when they’re in grade 11. The idea is to form a group of 4-6 individuals, and then plan/undertake a trip where you perform some aspect of CAS (whether it be an ‘activity’ like hiking, ‘service’ where you work with NGOs or creativity which involves learning more about another culture).
I’m looking forward to this experience for a number of reasons. Firstly, it will give me a chance to go visit the Blue Dragon NGO, an anti-trafficking organization located in Vietnam that I’ve supported for a number of years (via the Blue Dragon Global Concern at our school). I’ve currently been working on a podcast that highlights human trafficking in different parts of South East Asia (including Vietnam), and I plan to share it with the NGO members. I’d also like to discuss the possibility of distributing the podcast to international schools in Vietnam, to inspire action against human trafficking in their communities (which was the original intent of the podcast).
I also think the experience of planning this trip will be incredibly useful. I already have some event planning experience (via the annual MUN conferences I help organize), but there are certain aspects of this process that will be different (that I look forward to). For one, it will be important to factor in additional complexities such as passports (visa issues), and safety considerations. Furthermore, unlike MUN where you have the chance to work with individuals that are all highly experienced, here, I’ll be working with a team that’s relatively inexperienced (for instance, none of us have booked airplane tickets before). As such, we will likely have to deal with several obstacles that appear before us and adapt on the spot multiple times. Developing such skills is a key goal of mine (not only helpful for other CAS experiences but in the future, when I want to plan my own projects/initiatives/events).
