My group and I will be traveling to Kampot, Cambodia and we are going to be mostly service based. Our service partner is Chumkriel Language School (CLS) where we will teach small children mostly English. I’m the Logistics of my group. I think that this is a very challenging role I have taken up as I have to be very coordinated with the rest of my group. I’ve noticed that in order to get my jobs done I need to wait for everyone else to do theirs. It feels quite pressurizing and stressful to get things done with short notice. To get things done we had to do a lot of planning.
LO 3 INITIATIVE (Planning and initiated activities)
We planned a lot of things over the past couple of weeks. This includes our hotel, our flight, what we want to do at Chumkriel Language School and much more. To keep track of everything I created a ‘To Do’ list on a google doc and reminded everyone of what they should be doing occasionally and reminded them of our deadlines. I think that the planning helped with the visualization of the amount of work we had to do as well as being comfortable with our plan. The main document with all the flags helped with reassuring us that our planning is fine and we’re getting everything done.
As we progressed our plans changed drastically, we went from having an activity-based element to having to get rid of it completely. This was due to our third party provider not being able to give us answers to questions about safety. I think that even though some of us were looking forward to it, it definitely took away a lot of stress from us. This however created a new problem of having to find another creativity to replace the time we have left. With some brainstorming, we have found an alternative. This showed that even if something changes in our plan we can still rely on each other for help and all the stress does not have to be on one person. This really helped me decrease my anxiety as I was worried I would have to do a lot of research by myself which brings us to collaboration.
LO 5 COLLABORATION (Working together to achieve an outcome)
As mentioned, even with planning a lot we’ve had difficulties in actually carrying them out in time. I had to try and be the leader of the group at times which was very foreign to me. I usually don’t take up leadership roles as it doesn’t suit my personality. So having to get my group’s attention and make them realize how much work we have is a bit hard. It was a nice experience though. If I initiate the leadership eventually my other groupmates take the reins, so it’s nothing too difficult.
The good thing about working together is that we can split things according to who has more time and is willing to do the things. We all also have different strengths and weaknesses which compliment each other. For example, one of my teammates including myself has never been to Cambodia so we do not know what to expect. However, the other 2 have been there many times and are more familiar with the country which makes us more comfortable.
I think constant communication is a bit lacking but there definitely has been an improvement since the beginning of the planning. I think this is mostly because of the fact that all of us are just busy to constantly update each other. CC’ing each other in emails help out a lot for keeping track of progress though.
To be a better team member I will try to take up more leadership tasks and make sure we get things done quicker.
At the moment I’m just a bit worried about safety since I’ve never traveled outside the country without any adults. I hope to grow in my self-management area as well as be confident when I’m teaching the children.
