Goodbye to youth groups!

 (Late Post)

Had our last meeting with the youth groups today. I enjoyed working with them. Seeing their very enthusiastic faces makes me feel happy inside. But I don't know if my workmates appreciate their company. So sad we've never been of much use to them when they are so active in everything and just needed guidance to walk them through it.

Goodbye pose.. 

Our last habal-habal ride.. :D

We could've done more, you know. I could see a lot of opportunities in my mind which entails a lot of work of course but a satisfying outcome in the end. But I don't think my work mates see the same way I do. Cause every time suggestion for activities are made it is turned down. For me, maybe it is not a matter of questioning what we need to do when we can do something more like going the extra mile. Which we can do actually cause we've got ample time to do activities. But once a person gives no interest and the other person agrees to it, I can't do it on my own without someone's support.

SPW: With the Carood Girls

I wasn't able to do a story about this due to the fact that I don't feel like writing. But I regret that I didn’t write about it right after it was done because the feeling of happiness and accomplishment would have been overflowing so I could've written a story better than this. Well, since it's been weeks now I think I'll just try to remember the things that happened and what we felt about it.

Strategic planning workshop is one of our deliverables. The plan was actually from our VPS which is part of her action project after having visited Nepal for a month as an observer. She was tasked to apply those things that she have learned and so she come up with the strategic planning workshop. She vaguely mentioned to us the purpose of the workshop but I believe that it is for strengthening the Union of Carood Youth Organization (UCYO). The key outputs of the workshop are a crafted Vision, Mission, Goals and Objectives (VMGO); Constitutional by Laws; and Action Plan. I'm not gonna mention the process how we come up with those outputs since it can be quite technical. Anyway, it was quite a blow to us having a really bad weather, few participants than expected, and a facilitator who wasn't able to come due to miscommunication. Those were the unexpected things actually but we still went on hoping for it to be successful.

I thought that it could be a very messed up workshop considering the problems that we had. Yet it turned out that our participants were able to appreciate our efforts during the evaluation. I've also known few people in my place which I'm not familiar with. See how anti-social I am that even  people living meters away from our house are unknown to me. Maybe this is an implication of my lack of effort to be an active youth in our place I should've participated in lots of youth activities and organization. The workshop just made me realize that it is a lot of fun being with the people my age.

In the end, we went home really satisfied. I just hope that we should have done activities like this more than once. Well, there could be a next time for them of course but it will be with the another set of volunteers. 

CAD Success!

Community Action Day (CAD) is one of the highlights of the VSO ICS programme. For the past weeks, we have been planning our CAD, been busy giving the letters, meeting youth groups, scouting for participants for Carood Got Talent, and making sessions for the workshop. When the day before the event came, everyone has been occupied with printing sessions, schedules and posters; making backdrops; preparing the venue; finalizing contestants, and making last minute calls to youth groups and transportation. You can't see anyone not doing anything since all have been working onto something and been going back and forth from here to there.

 

This was us making ourselves busy the day before the CAD

I'm happy enough to be given tasks that I can handle. Especially riding shotgun on a dump truck despite the heavy rain. Nevertheless, have I been expecting that youth groups will still feel ecstatic with the bad weather. But they kept the fire burning for me and as one of the organizer that means a lot. My session together with a British volunteer might not sound that interesting but we were happy enough to see their happy faces. I also found that evaluation forms are the most entertaining thing to read when you are tired. (funny comments are a must read!)

Participants of our session- doing an activity!

I faciliated a session during the CAD too which is the "Recruitment and Retention of Members". Which is an added point for myself----- still have a long way to go for self development. :D

Our Youths from Mabini- posing before going home :D

So beside entertaining everyone with our Gentleman Dance, ( yeah, completely making fool out of ourselves which was really fun BTW) we ended the CAD well. We have made a day for everyone to remember.