Bal mela, an exciting opportunity provided by our school every year where underprivileged students from different schools participate. Bal mela is a student-led event where we volunteer in different activities such as art and crafts, games and activities, sports, dance and more. It helps us to engage and connect with students from different schools, know their stories and interact with them. This year, I volunteered for face painting which was very fun, exciting and memorable.

LO 1:  Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

Using this CAS experience, it allowed me to identify my own strengths in creativity. I took VA in grade 9 and 10 and always had passion towards arts. This allowed me to also be creative in face painting and also made it interesting. This experience also testing my patience as there were many students gathering up at the stall, pushing each other to do the activity first and also changing their ideas frequently which tested my patience very much as I was getting annoyed when they were continuously gathering up and pushing each other while i was painting on one person’s face as it would have been ruined. In this case, I tried to be calm enough and not scolding them but patiently handling the situation.

LO 2 : Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken,developing new skills in the process

Though, I had interest in arts and knew how to do it, face painting was a little challenging where we were given the different designs on that same day and some children were demanding complex one’s which was somewhat difficult and hence making it instantly such that their face doesn’t get ruin was hard but to overcome this, I first tried quickly some of the designs on the paper and then started face painting. Additionally, the table at which we were working was quite small for 3 people and children coming so managing the resources properly such that it doesn’t  get spilled and also managing the crowd of children coming together was a difficult task to handle but by being organized and with little effort, we were able to work it out.

LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

As a part of face painting, there were 3-4 stations for the same where groups were divided each having 3-4 members. During the events, we collaborated by dividing the responsibilities and role of painting and glittering where we discussed some drawings as per each’s strength such as one team member had strength in painting panda, one in butterfly and I did all the glitter paintings + other drawings too. So, any children coming for glitter painting came to me for the same and similar cases for my peers. 

LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance

Bal mela experience helped me to engage in critical global issues – unequal opportunities for children. As many of the children came from underprivileged backgrounds, the fun and entertainment, creative experiences were very restricted. This event helped to reduce that inequality though to a small extent where children were given equal opportunities regardless of their background or status. Thai also helped us as volunteers to contribute by taking a small step towards a meaningful change that is required in the society. 

In conclusion, this experience was filled with learning and fun. It made me realize some valuable skills such as collaboration, creativity, responsibility, overcoming obstacles and more. The challenges that I faced helped me to build resilience and overcome the barriers. This experience will surely be memorable for me.