Category: Project Week

The group I joined planned to travel to Jaipur to help teach at I-Indias school institution. It was a really disadvantaged community. I-India is a GC which works towards giving street kids a proper education. I joined a group of 4 who had already started planning for the trip to Jaipur. We were quite a well-organised group that worked well and communicated effectively with each other. The workload was divided equally amongst members and we were able to meet deadlines and submit all necessary documents on time. However, as I joined this pre-existing group late, I did initially face some challenges and found it awkward to find my place as a useful member. I felt lost as I didn’t know what stage they were at or what still needed to be completed. I lacked confidence in my ability to add value to the team. 

Owing to my reluctance to use social media, communication was also a bit of an issue for me in the beginning. The group used Instagram as the main platform to share information and until I brought myself up to speed on how to use it properly, I was missing out on a lot of important information. Understandably, this was a source of frustration for the group as they assumed I was getting messages. Equally, it was frustrating to me because I wasn’t aware that this was how communication was being distributed. I was more comfortable with WhatsApp and thought this was how the group would communicate. As they were able to find my instagram account (that I never use!) and add me, they assumed I was checking it regularly and read the posts.

From this experience I have learnt that I need to be a better communicator and become more familiar with social media applications. 

Preparations for the Grade 11s annual project week trip started on Tuesday the 26th of November, 2019. Initially, I wanted to travel to Gili islands with some friends to work with the NGO Gili Eco-trust. I was really interested in working with this NGO as they aim to protect the coral reefs and their inhabitants. It was also a scuba diving trip which sounded like a lot of fun. I have never scuba dived before and I wanted to push my boundaries by trying something new. I wanted to challenge my fear of the open water and the unknown. However, after discussions with doctors about my sinusitis condition, I was unfortunately not able to join this Project Week Group. I was really excited about the prospect of this trip and was hugely disappointed when I unable to participate. I then had to find another group which proved to be another enormous challenge as there was a limit on numbers within groups and everyone had already formed and were happy with their groups. It took me weeks to find a suitable group to join. I only knew one person in the new group. This brought up feelings of exclusion and isolation but this gave me the opportunity to meet new people and challenged me to work with strangers.

The group I joined planned to travel to Jaipur to help teach at I-Indias school institution. It was a really disadvantaged community. I-India is a GC that works towards giving street kids a proper education. I joined a group of 4 who had already started planning for the trip to Jaipur. We were quite a well-organised group that worked well and communicated effectively with each other. The workload was divided equally amongst members and we were able to meet deadlines and submit all necessary documents on time. However, as I joined this pre-existing group late, I did initially face some challenges and found it awkward to find my place as a useful member. I felt lost as I didn’t know what stage they were at or what still needed to be completed. I lacked confidence in my ability to add value to the team. 

Owing to my reluctance to use social media, communication was also a bit of an issue for me in the beginning. The group used Instagram as the main platform to share information and until I brought myself up to speed on how to use it properly, I was missing out on a lot of important information. Understandably, this was a source of frustration for the group as they assumed I was getting messages. Equally, it was frustrating to me because I wasn’t aware that this was how communication was being distributed. I was more comfortable with WhatsApp and thought this was how the group would communicate. As they were able to find my Instagram account (that I never use!) and add me, they assumed I was checking it regularly and read the posts. From this experience, I have learnt that I need to be a better communicator and become more familiar with social media applications. 

Preparations for the Grade 11s annual project week trip started on Tuesday the 26th of November, 2019. Initially, I wanted to travel to Gili islands with some friends to work with the NGO Gili Eco-trust. I was really interested in working with this NGO as they aim to protect the coral reefs and their inhabitants. It was also a scuba diving trip which sounded like a lot of fun. I have never scuba dived before and I wanted to push my boundaries by trying something new. I wanted to challenge my fear of the open water and the unknown. However, after discussions with doctors about my sinusitis condition, I was unfortunately not able to join this Project Week Group. I was really excited about the prospect of this trip and was hugely disappointed when I unable to participate. I then had to find another group which proved to be another enormous challenge as there was a limit on numbers within groups and everyone had already formed and were happy with their groups. It took me weeks to find a suitable group to join. I only knew one person in the new group. This brought up feelings of exclusion and isolation but this gave me the opportunity to meet new people and challenged me to work with strangers.