Final Reflection:

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

This was definately something that I developed greatly over the past two years and the CAS program. From initiating habitat, to organizing the ‘Run For Humanity’ to climbing adam’s peak, I became more and more aware of strengths and weaknesses. I realize that I am able to efficiently organize initiative and plan and implement however, often I’ve found it hard to manage the people who’ve volunteered to help. For example, I wasn’t able to efficiently allocate jobs for the 5k run and ended up doing far too much myself and there were too many members of the group who did not have anything to do. Again, with the Pakistan flood relief, there were people who wanted to help but I wasn’t sure how I could have used their help and ended up doing everything myself. This takes away opportunities from other people and causes me more stress than required. It’s definitely something I need to iron out.  

• undertaken new challenges

I undertook a few different challenges in my time in the IB. The first one was definitely starting off Habitat For Humanity. I started without any prior knowledge into CAS leadership. Another was to manage alzheimers and habitat at the same time and to make sure I was completely committed to both. Something that is very important to me is to keep in athletic shape and it was definitely a challenge with the IB to stay in good shape and keep working out as I’d only done one SAISA season in my two year in the IB as opposed to four in the two years prior to the IB.

• planned and initiated activities

The Adam’s Peak trip, Habitat, Run For Humanity were all initiatives that I personally planned and initiated. These were a great opportunity for me to practice and develop my leadership skills and to learn how to face unexpected problems. Consequently, I now have good problem solving skills and several leadership experiences. 

• worked collaboratively with others

This is something that has just come by itself almost. I’ve been lucky enough to work with great committed people for most of my CAS projects. From being track captain and having to work with kids from primary to organizing the Habitat Run For Humanity where I worked with adults from the Colombo Corporate sector, I came across a lot of people and developed skills to be able to work collaboratively and effectively with different kinds of people.  

• shown perseverance and commitment in their activities

Alot of my activities required a good degree of perseverence and commitment. I need to constantly advertise the Pakistan Floord Relief project to make sure people donated. I had to be committed to Habitat as issues with their management and organizational problems almost shut it down. I had to persevere with Track as I was having a hard time getting better times last year. Perseverance and commitment were shown in all of my activities as I cared to do well in them.  

• engaged with issues of global importance

I lead both Habitat for Humanity and the Lanka Alzheimers Foundation and dealt with issues of global importance. These were very satisfying experience as I believe any difference made for the better helps in making the world a better place to live. Also, I founded the Pakistan Flood Relief Fund and was very glad that I with the OSC community was able to help a country devastated by natural and internal factors. 

• considered the ethical implications of their actions

At times during my CAS program, I’ve had to make several ethical decisions. For example, at the time of the Run For Humanity it was up to me to split the funds collected between alzheimers and habitat as the leader for both depending on how much work each CAS put in. Such decisions came up often and I feel dealing with them has made me a morally stronger and more experienced person and I feel better equipped to deal with such instances in the future.

• developed new skills

The place where I developed the most new skills was Habitat. The builds were a great way of learning new manual skills. However, organizing the Run For Humanity was a great way to develop new social skills. Again, I furthered my skills on the guitar and in Track as well. If I were to list every new skill I developed through my CAS program, I’d be writing another extended essay so I’m going spare the reader that but would again assert the fact, that the CAS program was a great learning experience.