 |
Akanksha |
|
| |
 |
Evelyn |
|
| |
 |
Pinkie |
|
| |
 |
Rebecca |
|
| |
 |
Tina |
|
|
|
It is crucial to look at myself as a team player
Akanksha Dixit
As the popular saying goes ‘Easier said than done’, I still remember during the selection interview, all interviewees were asked about how they were going to design activities for the target recipients (Nepalese children) considering the fact that they don’t understand English. Four of us came up with many ‘action’ games, drawing activities etc. We also said that we would rely on a translator for basic instruction delivery. Today, when the trip is over, I still very clearly remember the immense struggles the other teams went through in explaining instructions of such so-called simple team building games. For Example: During the ‘Bacteria go away’ game, all of us spent so much time trying to explain the instructions to the kids in groups of 3, and considering the fact that the kids belonged from such diverse age groups, overall group coordination that was required for the game could not be achieved. Though we were divided into teams A, B & C, during the program I more or less felt apart of only one big group because we had so many sessions prior to the trip to prepare ourselves, not only that but as the trip was quite demanding in terms of travel conditions, hike, living in a village, these factors definitely put us all out of our comfort zones where we all were one big team helping everyone throughout the trip. That’s why, during other teams creative workshop, I also felt quite helpless and upset and at some point, I’m sure the service recipients did too, due to the large language difference. I could see in their eyes how badly they wanted to understand and enjoy themselves but some of them simply couldn’t understand all of our instructions. Despite this, the smile was not wiped from their faces and they remained excited and tried their best to learn from actions.
This was quite enlightening for me, as, growing up in cities we get so occupied in ourselves and our problems, become irritable, frustrated and forget to enjoy the simplicity of life. At that time, I remembered the many situations during my study at UST, when my group mates around me spoke in Cantonese and I could not understand. I used to get frustrated. However, during this trip, looking at the kids, I made a positive change in myself to be happier as well as step up to make a change because change doesn’t happen itself i.e. whenever I was in a situation as mentioned above, I simply politely told my group mates to speak in English as I wanted to contribute to the discussion during our wall painting. They apologized and then continued to make me feel comfortable which made me so happy and also wonder why didn’t I make this change before. Making this change helped me perform my duties towards this program more effectively as I was able to contribute more effectively.
Rather than identifying my duties as a list of tasks and then focus on completing them one by one. When I look back, I believe, I identified being a team player i.e. being an effective listener and active contributor as my key role and responsibility throughout the program, may it be during the teaching content preparation stage, actual teaching session, wall painting etc. This approach for me worked quite
positively when I look back as I never felt burdened by the tasks that we needed to complete as it was all just collaborating ideas and making them happen. It was a smooth and fun ride, even when during our team consultation session we were asked to change our full theme from ‘Farm Animals’ to ‘Nature. I feel if I had a more task centric approach, I would be tensed, as we would have to re do all the work we had done, but because of the approach I had taken, it was enriching working with my team to make it happen. I consider myself to be a learner, and I took this trip to be a huge learning experience may it be from Pink, my teammates or the locals. I will never forget what one of my teammate said during a debriefing session; they said that we feel bad looking at the local’s situation in terms of housing facilities, school infrastructure, and teaching faculty only because we compare their lives to ours. But, if we don’t do that, we can actually see that they are leading a very fulfilling life themselves. This honestly gave me a whole new perspective to see things around me and was very inspiring. It was truly inspiring to see true happiness in the eyes of the local children as well as families and living truly simple lives may it be students running around their uneven school floors, ladies cooking in their group (may it be in the village or near the school) or men carrying materials along the path between the school and the village.
I consider my flexibility to adapt to change as a key strength, which indeed helped me during as well as after the service. For Example: Adapting to such a different lifestyle in a foreign country, adjusting to the language barrier and perform activities for the betterment of the children such as teaching, creative workshops or even helping the women farm, unable to shower while feeling unwell. Over the years, I have focused on building on this strength by pushing myself out of my comfort zone by taking up different kinds of opportunities, which really helped me out as I was able to keep a smile on my face as well as truly live in the moment during the trip giving my best to the team and the recipient’s. Despite this, I remember on the 3rd day at the village, I was really feeling emotionally weak and unstable due to the extreme change in living conditions, unable to shower, and being unwell, the way I dealt with this at the moment was by communicating with my team members and Pink to seek help and motivation. This really helped me stay on track for the rest of the days. On the flip side, ‘Worrying’ is my biggest weakness, for Eg: I remember worrying about if our team was all on the same page before conducting our teaching session, or is our progress for the wall painting good enough. This would usually either have a setback in my progress or get hasty work done. I am aware of this and am constantly working on improving myself in this area, but in this trip apart from self-help, I was very well balanced by my teammates that were truly an asset and I am very thankful for having such a great team.
Overall, on a scale of 1 to 10, for the objective of empowering Nepalese kids by giving them a safe learning environment I would rate our team at 8, as we helped complete approximately 95% of the wall painting that was required to be done by us. I rated us short of 2 points, as I wish we had sufficient time to complete the lower floor as well. I remember seeing students study in dark, unpainted classrooms at the time. However, we gave our 100% during the 4 days to achieving this objective.
On a scale of 1 to 10, for the objective of enlightening the lives of the local students through different school activities, I would rate our team at a 6, mainly due to the large language barrier. At times, we did feel helpless and confused as to whether they understand our content or not. We did anticipate this and tried to give most instructions and teach most content through visuals rather than spoken words or written English text. However, sometimes this was challenging as well. Prior to the trip, I learnt the way our vocabulary was said in Nepali to facilitate our teaching, which was extremely useful and I was quite happy I had done that. One thing our team should have done similar to the other teams was to write down the vocabulary in the Nepali script for better understanding.
Lastly, on a scale of 1 to 10, regarding civic awareness, sharing trip experience, learning to live in the moment and importance of self-reflection, I would rate myself at 7. I remember doing web research about the situation in Nepal for one of our pre trip workshop and thinking to myself the situation might be really bad in Nepal. However, what I physically experienced in Nepal gave me a whole new perspective such as to see things in a more positive light, which indeed helped develop my overall civic awareness. Not only this, but interaction with different participants through the debriefing sessions, locals also added to this. I believe I have learnt many things as mentioned previously because of which I have constantly been sharing my experience with my friends and family inspiring them to give back to the community as well as build their civic awareness.
To summarize, as per my thinking, achieving the above would not be possible without good team coordination and an open mind. These factors are extremely important, as achieving the objectives, mainly to enlighten Nepalese children needed creativity considering language barriers and other difficulties such as lack of resources. This creativity would not be possible without inputs from different minds. And secondly, a positive and open mind is needed to be able to embrace the new environment around you and to feel secure.
I cannot begin to highlight the importance of ‘living in the moment’. I have been trying to achieve this since a long time but in our busy lives and constant worries relating to study, work and health it is very easy to get distracted. During this trip, being in a serene different environment with no network helped me feel so refreshed and calm. Our healthy eating habits, morning yoga sessions all really pushed me to adopt ‘living in the moment’. After the trip, I have tried to continue eating healthy, exercising and trying to ingrain ‘live in the moment’ attitude in my daily life.
I have only one semester left to complete my graduation and this is the peak time for me to look for jobs. Just like the majority in Hong Kong, I spent my previous semester applying to Investment banks and MNC’s without thinking what I really want to do. The process and rejections were no doubt frustrating and took a toll on my health. After this trip, like mentioned before I feel like I have gained a perspective as to how doing what you love really is the most important thing. I was truly inspired by the path Pink took on, despite the immense challenges she would have had to face. I have decided that in this last semester, along with focusing on schoolwork, I will dive deeper to find my passion and look for opportunities to pursue that. The thought of doing so itself makes me feel calm and happy, I look forward to being able to achieve this.
I strongly believe in the statement ‘Expectations lead to disappointments’. I know during many of the pre trip workshops we were asked to set our expectations and we did. However, I tried to keep my mind free of many expectations and just take what comes with an open mind. I believe this tactic has worked well for me, as I have no regrets or negative feelings about the trip whatsoever. I made the most of this trip in all aspects in my mind at least and I hope that my hard work and passion to give back to the community was seen in my actions.
Lastly, the above are my feelings and my thoughts to what changes I saw in myself, but another achievement I feel is that my family saw a positive change in me. Prior to the trip, I was constantly worried about my life path after graduation and my mom used to tell me stop wasting the present worrying about the future and to do what I love. I used to listen to her but I was still unable to register this in my mind. But now, a week after the trip my mom said ‘Wow, you seem so much happier and have a much clearer idea about what you want to do in life after graduation’. This indeed was a great achievement.
I wanted to join a Service Learning Trip since Year 1, I am glad I finally got around doing so. It has taught me how to be happier in all situations and deal with problems in a positive way. A final example of this was at the Katmandu airport on our way back to Hong Kong. All of us were extremely tired and just wanted to get home and shower. Out of nowhere, at the check–in they said due to an immigration policy for Indian Nationals, I was unable to fly to Hong Kong. My usual reaction to this would be panic and fear but at that point I found myself to be extremely calm trying to reasonably logic with the staff and finally getting myself to exit the country with no hassle. |
|
