Community service was an initiative taken by my school for us to teach underprivileged students. For three weekends, I taught cooking to the students. We taught them recipes, with the most basic ingredients, that were easy to make and didn’t take up a great deal of time. It was a great experience and it also gave me an opportunity to give back to society.

LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken developing new skills

Communication is a vital factor when teaching something. During the first few sessions, I could comprehend what the students were saying but I could not communicate with them in their language, Gujarati. But towards the end of the sessions, with the help of other volunteers and the students, I got a hang of Gujarati and was able to communicate with the students.

LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance

Community service was a three-week-long process that required me to get up early on Saturdays and Sundays. After a few sessions, it became tedious as it required a lot of time and effort. But I still showed up for every session because, at the end of the day, I realized I was doing it for a greater cause.

LO5: Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively

Working together as a team definitely made handling the students quite easy. We taught the students 2 or more dishes every day. So, with more volunteers, we could easily divide our work and complete making the dishes on time. Also, we taught students aged 11-14 years. They can easily be disinterested, therefore, it was essential to keep communicating with them. Having more volunteers around was beneficial because not everybody knew how to speak Gujarati.