Volunteering at a Health Care Center (BHN Healthcare Center, India) 

FOCUS:

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This ongoing project started off with a raw idea of teaching people things that they might be interested in, but have no access due to various reasons. It began with volunteering at a healthcare center in India, from where the idea of teaching further people arose. The reason behind this new idea was the positive response gained from the healthcare center, where I spent time and taught new things to elders. A plan for a new project, to teach English to underprivileged kids in India, was created and execution happened behind the scenes of teaching, however, due to the excessive increase of the pandemic in the target country — India — the plan couldn't be executed to its fullest. Even though it couldn't be executed, the behind the scenes had all the materials, supplies, physical and mental preparation, and teaching planning was ready. Although it didn't go as planned, there was a lot learnt from this potential future project that will be executed and possibly be a success. 

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CAS stages

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Investigation: The idea of teaching the people in need was something that was on the back of my mind for quite a while and this officially was put into action when I started researching about old age homes in India during October 2019. I researched and found BHN Healthcare Center, which is an old age home. I contacted them and explained my plan to them about how I wanted to be of help to the elders and teach them about something and learn things from them. I was given a week with specific timings to go meet the elders, spend time with them, teach them things, and spend quality time with them. 

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Preparation: The entire month of October, I planned on how I was going to execute the teachings. I made an exact plan with timings of how and what I was going to teach. I took their age and location into consideration and decided to first of all get to know them all initially, some of them were quite depressed and concerned about their lives and their age, therefore I decided to have a reflective session with them and have a little bit of therapy. I watched videos and took concerns and advise from professionals regarding therapy, since I was dealing with people that have serious concerns and saying some things might end up being triggering and losing the bond. I also decided on some interactive sessions where I taught them how to bond with one other and find the positives in everything regarding which I also watched videos and consulted some individuals. Another thing I did to prepare was talk to my own grandmother, who is quite old and ask her about what she would like to learn if she was one of the elders at the foundation, this gave me a load of ideas and made my plan even stronger. I even did some rehearsals at home regarding the activities, interactive sessions, and introduction  to prepare myself and be someone they are willing to meet and spend an entire week with.

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Action: I officially executed my plan in the month of December when I went to India. I spent the week of the 2nd of December with them. I executed all the activities and sessions that I had planned with them  and their cooperation and enjoyment made it a success. Teaching them things that I knew and learnt and learning things from them was a completely new and eye opening experience for me. We did yoga, had a couple of interactive sessions even though I planned for one since they enjoyed it so much and requested to have more of those. We had some language exchange where I taught them some Thai and they taught me some extensive Hindi. I also taught them how to meditate, since that is something that I was aware of and do it sometimes on my own in my personal life. Spending time with them changed the way I viewed things and gave them knowledge about things that they never knew about, currently they execute the interactive sessions every week and keep me updated upon how it went, which is great to see since something small that I did left a great impact on them. At the end, we even celebrated with a party and dedicated it to the bond we all had created in such a short time.

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Reflection: Performing this activity made me realize that there are so many people that wish to learn, but don’t receive the opportunity. During the month of February, I decided to change the aspect of “teaching” to not having a barrier, and then I decided to use India, my origin and the ability to speak the language as an advantage. I planned on starting a project known as No Age to Learn and the goal would be to target a group of people, teach them something and once they have learnt it, move on to another group. I decided to take on a big initial project and teach little kids in underprivileged institutions in India about how to speak English. The first activity inspired me to give people something that they wouldn’t get and something that I have a load of. Sharing this knowledge would only be beneficial and provide more inspiration to do more.

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Demonstration: I started searching up for such underprivileged institutions that are willing to let me volunteer and teach their students. After making a list, I shortlisted some of them. However, during that time, the corona virus spread rapidly, eliminating my plan of visiting India during the Songkran break. However, taking this into a positive aspect, I decided to use technology as a way of execution and decided to teach the students virtually. Currently, the progress on this project is coming up with weekly lesson plans, which is going on quite smoothly, initiative on social media regarding this project in order to spread the word and get more opportunities to speech, development of a website for anonymous or known questions, concerns, and the plan and reason behind this project. Once the bases are set, which should be set quite soon, there is going to be an execution of this project virtually. This first subproject of No Age to Learn is going to be known as Inglish.

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Final Result: Finally, due to the excessive rise of the pandemic in India, it was difficult to contact people and create possible timings to execute the plan. Therefore, all the preparations were not put into use as of real circumstances, but they have been kept for future use possibly. This CAS project started off with a volunteering at a health care center in India and developed as an ongoing, unprepared plan to create a sort of change in terms of lack of education in India. Although the plan of teaching didn't go as planned due to external barriers of the pandemic, the main thing learnt from this experience was to keep trying and always hoping that nothing will ruin the plans made. Even though the pandemic came up, I still made all the plans for teaching and prepared myself physically and mentally, but unfortunately it didn't happen. However, I still learnt to never lose hope and keep trying and using resources in the best way possible rather than complaining over the things that we don't have access to.