Our goal this year was not to raise funds this year; it was to increase awareness about who we are and what we do. To do this, we planned two events, Green Umbrella Dodgeball and Breakout. I was personally involved in the planning for Green Dodgeball.

The event started out as a variation of “Beer Pong” a popular game played at bars which we tentatively called, “Green Umbrella Pong”. Mentor groups would compete to throw ping pong balls into cups containing questions. If they answered the question correctly, the cup would be removed. The first to lose all their cups win. The questions were all related to Green Umbrella, Cambodia and Sustainable Development Goals. The aim was to create an event that was informative but simultaneously enjoyable. However, due to logistical difficulties of arranging multiple games to be played by 10 mentor groups at a time, the idea had to be scrapped.

The main issue which we were previously facing was that what we considered to be ‘popular’ activities (such as sporting activities) were not aligning with what Green Umbrella was as they do not focus on sports like other GCs. Therefore, we had to be quite creative with how we were going to balance an engaging event with the proper execution of our goal to raise awareness about what we stand for. In order to tackle this, we repurposed the questions that we had previously created for Green Umbrella Pong and integrated them into a game of dodgeball, in which players would be asked a question when they catch the ball, to return to the game. This method was to use the continued repetition of questions to players such that over the course of the game they would become more and more adept at answering them and hence learn more about our GC and the issues we tackle.

I worked collaboratively with my friend in order to figure out the logistics of the event. We were coordinating with the P.E. department in order to arrange for the materials required. We were able to confirm these on time and the event was executed well.

We ran the event twice — ten mentor groups each day.  Green Umbrella members had to come into school earlier on those days to set up for the activities. Some members including me were standing at the sides of the courts with questions. When someone caught the ball and tried to get back into the game, I would stop them and ask them to answer questions. A lot of people kept returning and each time they got better at answering the questions. Therefore, I think we were able to make an impact on the students,  and achieve our goals and raise awareness about our GC.

Learning Outcomes Demonstrated:

• Learning outcome 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
• Learning outcome 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
• Learning outcome 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively
• Learning outcome 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
• Learning outcome 7: Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions