My CAS Blog: CREATIVITY

Bratislava Model United Nations (BratMUN 2012)

SUPERVISOR: Mrs. LePouttre

DATES OF ACTIVITY:

Sessions at school: September 2012 - November 2012 (once a week)

BratMUN 2012 conference: from 9th to 11th November 2012

PLAN:

My plan for the conference was to improve in both negotiating and decision-making skills. Part of my goal was to also develop new skills such as public-speaking skills that I was unfortunately at that time missing. In order to achieve my goal, I was planning to get involved in as many debates as possible. = 2. DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SKILLS

BratMUN conference was closely related to my future career path and by participating in it I was planning to increase awareness of my strengths and mainly of my weaknesses such as public speaking, so I would know what I should work on more. = 3. INCREASED AWARENESS OF STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

HOURS SPENT PERFORMING ACTIVITY: 35 hours

PLANNED EVIDENCE: Photos of BratMUN 2012 conference will serve as evidence.

ACTIVITY SELF-EVALUATION FORM TURNED IN?: Yes!

REFLECTION:

BratMUN conference lasted for three days. At the beginning of the first we had the opening ceremony which gave us a chance to see highly respected and powerful people such as American or French ambassadors. After the ceremony each delegate went to his/her committee where he/she would represent ideas of the country he/she was delegate of on the current issue.

In BratMUN 2012, I was in SPECPOL Committee representing Egypt. First, all the delegates would present their policy statements and then the debate would start. The main goal was to write a resolution on the issue. = 8. COLLABORATION WITH OTHERS

Next day, we would continue with the committees and in the afternoon we would have the general assembly in which all delegations were present. During the third day, delegations submitted a final resolution and the conference ended with the closing ceremony.

This simulation of the United Nations taught me more than I originally expected. I got a great opportunity to be engaged in many global issues from "The future of the nuclear energy" to a huge crisis in Mali. = 4. ENGAGEMENT WITH GLOBAL ISSUES

Thanks to my participation at MUN, not only I got much better understanding of the major issues, but I also found out how important it was to pay attention to the world news, especially if I wanted to study International Relations in university.

I realized that the only way for coming up with a compromise, or in this case a final resolution, is through collaboration with others. For the first time in my life I experienced standing and speaking in front of so many people who kept looking at me listening to every single word I said. Even though at the beginning of the conference I was very nervous and my hands were shaking during my speech, at the end of the conference I was able to openly represent ideas of "my" country without being stressed out. This showed that my public-speaking skills certainly did improve.

After I finished my speech several delegates started arguing with my, in a polite way of course, claiming that the opinions of my country were completely wrong. I felt very unconfortable and pressured. Therefore, this was definitely one of the most challenging parts of the MUN for me. = 6. UNDERTAKING NEW CHALLENGES

After BratMUN conference I was determined about attending another MUN because I just gained so much experience in terms of negotiating, decision-making and leadership. However, for the next MUN I would do more research not only about the country I was a delegate of, but also about other countries in my committee because the more information you have, the more valid arguments you as a delegate can make! = 3. INCREASED AWARENESS OF STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT BratMUN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsl6xenu16c

Fellow Delegates from QSIB!

HOUSE Project - Hospital

SUPERVISOR: Ms. Moriarty & Mr. Priestley

DATES OF ACTIVITY: Over the whole Senior year (2013 - 2014)

House meetings: Once in 2 months
Individual sessions: At least once a month

PLAN: Since I was one of the four leaders, as I have already mentioned, I was not only responsible for leading other students, but also for organizing our project in order to make it "creative".

The third part, "Wishes Come True," involved fund raising. Instead of just raising money by having bake sales, I decided to ask other students if they were willing to buy actual presents for children with cancer. However, in order to make this third part work and keep it voluntary at the same time, we came up with an interesting idea. First, all students and I would create a Christmas tree using a cardboard. Then, they would all have time for brainstorming about what gifts the children could like. Lastly, we wanted to put a name of each child who is suffering from cancer on one of the branches and write down a description of a proper Christmas gift we were planning to give him. = 8. COLLABORATION WITH OTHERS

In order to accomplish this, I had to take care of several things first. For example: My plan was to send an email to the hospital asking if they were willing to give us the list of names of children with cancer. Another thing I had to take care of was to make sure we got enough material, such as cardboard or color paper and brought them to the class on time, so students could started working on the Christmas tree right away. One of the hardest parts was come up with a good motivation for the students. Since we did not want push them into anything, we decided that they get to choose whether they wanted to do brainstorming or making the tree. = 1. PLANNING AND INITIATION

This part of the HOUSE Project - Hospital would certainly help me to develop my organizational as well as leadership skills. = 2. DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SKILLS

It was also an undeniable challenge I willingly undertook that gave me an opportunity to both collaborate with other leaders and students, and show commitment to such activities. = 6. UNDERTAKING NEW CHALLENGES; 7. COMMITMENT TO ACTIVITIES

HOURS SPENT PERFORMING ACTIVITY: 25 hours.

PLANNED EVIDENCE: Pictures of students building the Christmas Tree and later of the gifts for children with cancer.

SELF-EVALUATION FORM TURNED IN?: Yes!

REFLECTION:

Even though working with the department of oncology seemed like a great and very generous idea, after a while I realized that it was going to much harder to make this project come true than I ever expected.

It all started with the email I sent to the hospital. What I found out was that getting an exact number of children with cancer was more complicated than I thought. This was due to a fact that a number of patients at the hospital constantly changes and therefore, they could not give us any names of the patients.

After making the Christmas tree, it was time for each member of our house to make a commitment and bring one gift for either a boy or a girl from the hospital. Despite the fact that I several times repeated that the gifts must be new because of the hygiene, some of the students still brought already used up toys, which I, of course, could not give to the children. I also made a list of gifts that were appropriate for this event, but, once again, several members of the house apparently did not understand that.

Furthermore, the original plan of our house was that all students, regardless of age, would go visit the children at the hospital and give them the Christmas gifts. However, this part of the plan did not work either because visitors under age of 18 were not allowed to me children. We did not fully realize that these children were extremely sick and even one caughing student could unconsciously hurt them and maybe even cause death. Therefore, the second leader of the house, Talah, and I decided to visit children just by ourselves to eliminate the possible danger. However, working with the hospital required lots of restrictions we never even thought of. For example: before we finally got to meet with the kids, Talah and I had to undergo a special psychological training, and had several meetings with hygienists and psychologists working at the hospital. It was a very long process and it took us a lot of patience. = 5. CONSIDERATION OF ETHICS