Sehra Aggarwal, Grade 12
UWCEA Arusha Campus
At all IB schools there is a strong emphasis on having a balance between activités that pertain to community service, creative stimulation, and physical activity, this is also known as CAS. Being an IB world school all UWC students must participate in these activities to obtain their diploma. This may be an opinion that is not shared but I really enjoy the CAS programme as it challenges me to think outside of the box, move my body, and contribute to the community that has nurtured me. My favourite activity that I have undertaken so far has been participating in project week and creating a Leavers Book for the class of 2022.
It all started with me rummaging through my older brother’s closet for a jacket when I stumbled upon his own Leavers book that he received when he graduated from his high school. I immediately called five of my closest friends and explained the contents of the book in an effort to persuade them to create a similar one for our school (UWCEA, Arusha). A few weeks later we were informed about project week and began writing our project proposal. After running it though grammarly for what felt like one hundred times we finally submitted it and waited for the verdict.
It seemed like Christmas came early as our project was accepted and we started working on it immediately. This entailed getting responses from over 70 D1s, finding sponsors to support our project, finding a reliable printer to publish our books, and most importantly building a productive group dynamic. One of our biggest obstacles was obtaining financial support for this project as we did not receive any money from the school and we were determined to have the books printed for the graduating class. To my luck I was assigned head of sponsorship procurement and was consequently faced with insurmountable stress. For over three months (spanning from January to March) I visited a total of twenty companies in the Arusha community to ask for their support in our project. Out of these twenty companies I was able to obtain the support of eight different private firms.Once we received the confirmation of sponsorship we began putting our book together. Apart from hunting down a few students who failed to submit their responses, it was the least tedious part of our project for me.
Finally after five months of strenuous hard work we presented the finished yearbooks to the class of 2022 at their graduation ceremony that took place in late May. This was definitely the highlight of the project as seeing people pointing and laughing at images with their friends/family reminded me of the reason I called my friends that day. The point of this project was not for me to embarrass myself in front of the public relations officers of twenty different companies but rather to create an everlasting memory for the second generation of UWCEA Arusha graduates. All in all creating the leaver’s book was one of the most challenging and enjoyable experiences that I have ever had.
It all started with me rummaging through my older brother’s closet for a jacket when I stumbled upon his own Leavers book that he received when he graduated from his high school. I immediately called five of my closest friends and explained the contents of the book in an effort to persuade them to create a similar one for our school (UWCEA, Arusha). A few weeks later we were informed about project week and began writing our project proposal. After running it though grammarly for what felt like one hundred times we finally submitted it and waited for the verdict.
It seemed like Christmas came early as our project was accepted and we started working on it immediately. This entailed getting responses from over 70 D1s, finding sponsors to support our project, finding a reliable printer to publish our books, and most importantly building a productive group dynamic. One of our biggest obstacles was obtaining financial support for this project as we did not receive any money from the school and we were determined to have the books printed for the graduating class. To my luck I was assigned head of sponsorship procurement and was consequently faced with insurmountable stress. For over three months (spanning from January to March) I visited a total of twenty companies in the Arusha community to ask for their support in our project. Out of these twenty companies I was able to obtain the support of eight different private firms.Once we received the confirmation of sponsorship we began putting our book together. Apart from hunting down a few students who failed to submit their responses, it was the least tedious part of our project for me.
Finally after five months of strenuous hard work we presented the finished yearbooks to the class of 2022 at their graduation ceremony that took place in late May. This was definitely the highlight of the project as seeing people pointing and laughing at images with their friends/family reminded me of the reason I called my friends that day. The point of this project was not for me to embarrass myself in front of the public relations officers of twenty different companies but rather to create an everlasting memory for the second generation of UWCEA Arusha graduates. All in all creating the leaver’s book was one of the most challenging and enjoyable experiences that I have ever had.
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