MISSING is a public awareness campaign which aims to sensitise people to the plight of millions of girls who are trafficked for sexual exploitation. Human Trafficking or Girl Trafficking has been a huge problem for our country from a long time and has always haunted all girls in their life. keeping them self feel unsafe.
Our School offered us a opportunity to collaborate with the this organisation to spread awareness and teach rural children about the human trafficking. That included the reasons why they are children’s are trafficked in first place, Ways through which the trafficking is executed and potential ways to keep themselves safe from other people. Enrolling with the organisation was a great step for me and great contribution to the society. So, me and my friends went to the nearby rural school with the help of our school to take a session upon human trafficking and give them some knowledge and information it. At, the end of the session, with those children and principle of the rural school, we made a stencil on the wall which had logo of MISSING organisation and a helpline number for emergency situations.
Through this service, I gained a lot of knowledge about the severity human trafficking in our country and some very shocking facts about it. For this project, we as a group had a one month long process in which we we executed many other various activity which helped us enhance our other skills and gain a better knowledge therefore, have a greater impact on the society.
This CAS experience involved Activity as the CAS comp abonent in which Learning Outcomes I demonstrated were LO-2, LO-3, LO – 4, LO- 5, LO- 6.
LO-1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
At the starting of this project, we had an understanding about our own weakness and strengths which helped us proceed through this project smoothly without too much problems. We had a long process before the final sessions with the rural children and thereby we had divided the task according. As a group, after having the sessions I discovered some weaknesses of mine which I wasn’t aware about and I am pretty happy about knowing them. As a person working to solve those weaknesses is making me a better person and enhancing my various skill. It is important for us to know our strengths and weaknesses as it ultimately helps in establishment of a better group work. So, We decided to divide the task according to our strengths and as IT is my strength, in the group I was assigned the poster designing task. This helped us to drive our self smoothly towards the final session. While the project, the mistakes thats we as a group were making were we weren’t that focused which lead to delay and consumption of more time which shouldn’t have happened in the first place. As the children of the rural school knew mostly Gujarati, it kind of restricted our presentation and resulted in lesser effect as convey of idea wasn’t perfect to the childrens. Knowing Gujarati language is very essential according to me for our day to day life as it is one of the most spoken language In Surat. Maybe overcoming this weakness would have benefited me and the group as whole.
LO-2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
Undertaking new challenges is very important as it helps a person throughout his/her life to grow and get better every day. During this project, we as a group undertook many challenges and tackled them. Challenges like, we all were new to this kind of social service which was holding us back. Furthermore, working with my weaknesses of stage fear while the project was challenging for me but as a group, my friends helped me get through it and have a great session at the end. The reason for this project being so challenging was to manage it with the on going studies / curriculum and submissions. In starting, I was finding it difficult to manage as I had to take out time from the studies and daily life to work upon this project for the children. But eventually, working in group collaboratively made the project easier. This kind of opportunity was totally new for me because of which I enrolled myself in this project. To overcome the problems and challenges that we were facing individually and as group, we using our time management skills started taking out time for each and everything and together helped each other to overcome the problems. We used teamwork as the main solution for all the problems. Not overcoming the challenge of interacting with the children in their language was issue but as my team member were familiar with Gujarat, they took over the situation and handled it. Getting an opportunity to this project with my friends spreading awareness makes me feel proud of my self.
LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
This is the activity where task didn’t go according to the plan. we as a group had planned to make a great presentation and do the required task nicely. However, firstly, I and my friends were new to this kind of project and service so it took more time thats expected to get out selfs setteled. Secondly, in being of the project, I was finding it difficult to work in a group with the other members as we didn’t had this kind interaction before. further, I was caught up in submission and the ongoing curriculum due to I somehow almost forgot about this competition.
Though I like to organize my studies most of the time, sometimes when things come up all of a sudden, planning does not always work. My case was the somewhat same and it was bad that I wasn’t able to follow my plan.
However, as it is said better start than never. Therefore, 1 and half week before the final session , we started researching for the project and completed the remains task and made a nice presentation with the help of ma’am for the final sessions so that we are able to teach those children something worth learning and important about their safety.
This activity taught me how to manage things when situations are not in control, which is certain to happen in the future.
LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
It is easy for me to commit time to things that I enjoy doing. And when it comes to helping children and doing service which brings smile on their faces, I can do it all day long without getting bored. I was very keen towards doing this project and was very excited to do it. This project was challenging for me which required a load of attention and time without any disturbances.
But, Irrespective of being keen towards this project, as mentioned before, the curriculum and submissions and to some extent my laziness was the difficult that was keeping me away from the commitment. After the project ended, I felt Asif I didn’t gave my hundred percent to the project and gave it less time and commitment it should have deserved. I felt bad that I wasn’t good and didn’t have a great impact on the children about this very important issue.
It is important to be persistent with the work or aim you have achieved. Because it helps you to not get distracted from your path and help you to focus and perform better achieving your ambition and helping people out.
LO- 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
This MISSING GIRLS PROJECTS was done in Surat only where my group attempted the spread awareness about human trafficking. But, Due to our unsuccessful planning and lack of commitment as said before, we as a group did not had a great session with those children but where able to spread awareness about the issue.
Talking about myself, I don’t have any problem working in groups because every-time working in group is exciting for me and makes me learn something or other. As said, working in groups for this project was also not a problem for me as I knew them before that helped us have a better coordinations and understanding. My teammates were difficult to work with and we all entertained suggestions for the project every time. We Collaboratively divided the task between us also.
According to me, In such projects and in further life, it is very important for a person to learn to work in a group as it enables a wide range of ideas to be portrayed in front of other people which helps the the task to be done more efficiently and group members to build a stronger bonding with other teammate and work together to learn new things in life.
LO- 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
This service raises an important issue that has a global significance according to me. The issue is Human Trafficking which is a massive violation of fundamental human rights. This crime has affected many families and most importantly questioned the safety of children. The various purposes for this crime are Prostitution, Illegal adoption of children, Organ transplants, Forced marriages. When this project was introduced to us by the school, I was very keen to enrol myself so that I could contribute to my society by spreading awareness to children about this dangerous crime. According to me, knowing about such global issue and taking a step to help the society with an aim of making it more safe for future generations and children, this contribution helps me grow emotionally and physically stronger. It also helps my understanding about the real world grow which is very essential to understand what is safe or correct or not. Being known about this global issue makes me feel bad about the children who are suffering this crimes. As Human trafficking is a difficult crime to detect, it is one of the biggest challenge for our country.
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