I think project week provided the most unique method of executing a CAS experience. From the beginning – even before the formal initiation of the process – my GC was dead-set on having a project week take place in Cambodia for service work with the Tabitha GC and thus most of our fundraising in Grade 11 for Wavelengths amongst others was primarily directed at this.
We ended up raising approximately SGD$2830 from bake sales and donations but comprised 24% of our projected goal.
However, it didn’t pan out entirely as some time after the formal initiation of the project week the service department had veto’d our plan despite being thought out and at the time it felt like a crushing blow. However, looking back, it did provide our entire group an important experience about how, for lack of a better term, “shit happens” and the only thing you can do is move on and use what you have learned.
From that we decided to all split up and go our separate ways and I took the initiative to lead the plan for another project week idea with another person who was also left behind in the split. As we did this relatively late in the process it was difficult to find an available supervisor or a location that would get readily approved. In the end the two of us managed to compose a relatively effectively plan to Vietnam but needed group members as a two-person project week group would not get approved.
The day after we had finalized our plan we had found four other members who already had a plan in place to go to Nepal and as their plan was more complete than ours – including pre-approved activities and services. While it would seem like a conclusive end to the turbulence of project week, the initial difficulties that I faced seemed largely minute in comparison to what we would eventually encounter.
Reviewing the Nepal plan, I could never really shake the feeling of doubt that what the service we were helping with was well and truly good service. I thought back to the idea of sending used clothes to African nations creating immense blowback as the donated clothes would undercut the local textile industries. I thought back to the idea that not all charity was good and the misguided and underplanned ones would create more harm than not undergoing that service at all. I thought of our hastily cobbled-together plan for Vietnam and doubted that the service we planned to do in Nepal was good. I had brought this up with my group who all confirmed that it was representative of what is missing in Nepal and what we’d be doing would alleviate that.
Perhaps the biggest issue came with when it was time to book flights and lodging. One member of our group had wished to come back a day earlier so as to prepare for their SATs however many of the flights to Kathmandu on the day our group member wanted to come on were either outside our budget or unavailable. This conflict of interest ended up creating a rift between us as looking back, this was a result of a failure to truly communicate. In hindsight, these communication issues would continue to pile up as the problems began to escalate. As we continued our process of booking and planning, we failed to adequately convey our plans to our parents and some of our group members’ parents decided to intervene and disagree with our choice of domestic flights raising concerns about its reliability.
This situation involving our parents eventually culminated in the project week department vetoing our plan similar to how we ended up initially and we were left to pick up the scraps of what remained. It was also here that the issues developed in the process of booking arrangements for Nepal caused a schism in the group with also devolved into one person leaving.
Continuing the theme of a failure of communication, some emails I had written in a stressed state from the events of this process perhaps contributed to a failure to drum up any reasonable plan despite the efforts of all five of us until the last week before project week well and truly was underway.
In my opinion it was here where our cooperation and individual contributions culminated as within 3 days we had managed to create a plan in Singapore involving service with the National Parks department in the Botanical Gardens as well as cooking classes and pottery within smaller, lesser-known places. I was personally in charge of liaison between our representative for National Parks whereas my other group members were in charge of booking and transportation.
Looking back, the doubt I had when I joined up with the Nepal plan wasn’t there when we decided to work with National Parks as their guidance is that of the government’s which is quite benevolent and working for society. I think that is another lesson as doubting everything is quite advantageous but only up to a point as beyond that point involves circular reasoning and a lot of time wasted considering things that shouldn’t to begin with.
I think perhaps our greatest failure as a result of this project week journey was communication. It was the reason behind our schism, it was the reason behind our failure as a GC to assemble a project, it was the reason our back up plans after Nepal fell through. As I look back after completing the project, it had became abundantly clear that a failure of this magnitude presented probably the biggest learning experience of all the groups – the entire journey of project week – as it presented several life lessons of failure, getting back up and how plans that don’t work in the end can still have work that you can look back on and be proud of.
My advice for future students undergoing this process is to be diligent with communication with ALL parties involved and mend rifts before they split even further. I was perhaps the most neutral when the schism occurred and perhaps I could’ve mended the rift that formed however my inaction was a contributing factor to it. Thus, the biggest lesson i’ve taken away from this process is not to hesitate with mending rifts not of your own creation.
By reflecting upon the process of planning a CAS experience – both as a group and as an individual, as well as considering the ethical nature of our service, I achieved LO3, LO5, LO6 and LO7