CAS Final Essay

In my opinion many things affect a person’s education; it goes from interests, personal perspectives and life experiences. I moved to Kenya when I was 14 years old, in 10^th grade. I am a Lebanese citizen, originally Armenian. The change was a terrible experience at first seeing as I took about a year to adapt. Given my personal background, I have different points of view on important world issues. One of the many things that have helped me develop these points of view is my CAS experience. CAS was not only a program at school where I had to do service action and creativity; it was much more than that as it helped me be the person I am today. In all these clubs and teams I have been part of, I met friends from more than fifty different countries and I am so grateful for that.

Over the past three years, I have been involved in many clubs and teams: Operation Smile, Friends of Marich, the Greenhouse, HeARTS, The varsity Tennis team and Zumba. I have been involved in building a school for Kenyan children with the Me to We Organization (as I went on a trip with them in both 10^th and 12^th grade), I have helped raise money for the Operation smile organization; I have visited hospitals here in Kenya and helped children heal using all forms of art, and started building a library in West Pokot (Friends of Marich). Before moving to Kenya I wasn’t aware of such poverty and inequality, in fact only now I realize how privileged and lucky I am.  I know that I have helped, even a little bit, many children and I tried to give them a better future and I am proud of myself for that. My CAS experienced made me realize the world I live in; it made me aware of some of the terrible aspects of poverty and discrimination (in Kenyan culture). CAS helped me raise awareness on the reality of rural Kenyan education and health.

I have developed several skills though my CAS experience, I learned how to be committed to something like for example staying every Wednesday after school for heARTS, or practicing tennis four times a week or dancing Zumba every weekend, which was a lot of pressure seeing as I am a full IB student. This also taught me the importance of time management and gave me a better work ethic. In addition to that I learned how to collaborate with others and plan activities with a large group where everyone gives their opinion and is heard. CAS also made me aware of personal strength and skills I didn’t know I had, for example advertising skills used in Operation smile, some serious determination used in Varsity Tennis. There have been many ups and downs, there were many challenges along the way, especially with the most recent group I joined; heARTS. I was worried at first because I had never tried to “heal” sick children using art forms and having this huge responsibility, we were all very worried and didn’t know if we were going to make a difference. We soon realized, through the help of our chaperones and a psychologist who helped us in the process, that it wasn’t an issue at all. In fact, we are not responsible for their happiness, we just have to try and make that change and it is okay if we are not successful.

I feel like I not only enjoyed myself throughout these activities and opportunities, but that I was able of making, even if a little, change in this world. I realized even that small contributions and donations can make a difference, that anyone who is willing to help can actually make a difference. Every challenge was a lesson on the way of success (success was being able to make a difference), and it was all worth it, worth all the effort and the time. Teamwork has taught me that if people worked together and were willing to improve a life and make a change, they certainly can. Teamwork and perseverance are key factors in helping others.

As I previously said, I met very different people in my three years in Kenya and that has also helped me build the person I am today, people enrich each other’s life with their culture and wisdom. I now look at things very differently than when I first moved here and I am very thankful for what I have and the opportunities I was given. I now am also very aware of issues of global importance and I hope when I go to university next year, that I will be able to contribute and be part of service, creativity and even action clubs and groups, and continue making a difference in this word and putting a smile on people’s faces. I also hope that I will get more familiar with important issues in Lebanon and help in creating a change, as I am only aware of such problems here in Kenyan culture.

Fringe Festival !

This year For the Fringe Festival, Ms Nichols and Ms. Lavender (two IB english Teachers at ISK) decided to participate in the Fringe Festival (organized by IB drama students only). They decided to create a short 5minutes feminist play about 5 paintings and Margaret Atwood's famous poem "Manet's Olympia" that we have studied in class for the oral commentaries. They asked 5 of their students to be part of their play, myself included: Ibtissam Benbaha, Olivia Fomete, Cora Lavender and Noella Kabaluapa.
My painting was Mona Lisa, I was supposed to show the audience that Mona lisa isn't a boring unhappy and miserable person, I had to show that she is happy and enthusiastic and doesn't like people's reactions when they see her and they are disappointed. Ibtissam was Olympia (in Manet's painting and Atwood's poem), olivia was the girl with the pearl earrings, cora was Marilyn monroe and Noella was Picass'o dora. At first I wasnt too excited about this Fringe festival seeing as February is a very busy month for full IB seniors, but I soon realized that I loved being part of their play. This play was honestly so much fun, rehearsals were very funny, we got to bond with each other and the more we practiced the better it got and the final performances were really really good despite some mistakes that we made that were still really funny.
In addition to that we got to watch the other IB drama students' perfomances and plays which was also great. I had never been part of any play or acting performance ever and this was the first time I acted in front of people and it went really well, I was really nervous at the beginning but the more we practiced the better it got and the better we all performed.

HeARTS!!

One of my friends started the HeARTS group early this year, it's the healing arts program. The first semester we did training workshops here at ISK where Ms. Elleby, Ms. Blanchard and Ms. Mackay were helping us and teaching us several things: how to talk to kids, what to do in certain situations, how do healing arts work... we also made sock puppets and many different other things. During christmas we went to Gertrudes Hospital for a christmas party and that was amazing. We had lots of kids come in, some were sick and some weren't, but either way they were all great they had so much energy and they were so happy to have us there. I was doing face painting the whole time while others were making bracelets, singing, drawing etc... It was really nice going there and playing with these kids, knowing that we were making them happy. The whole group was very happy and we were very excited to go back again. 

The second semester in my opinion was much better than the first because unlike the first where we mostly did workshops at school, the second semester we did a lot more, we went to Gertrudes again and we had the Saru kids come to ISK twice. The second time at Gertrudes was also awesome because we got to do lots of things with the kids and this time they were all sick kids (some were in beds). We were drawing self portraits with them, reading stories, and making small hearts with cardboard. We were there on a Wednesday after school for almost 2hours and then we went back to ISK and discussed what was good and what wasnt and we made suggestions for improvements for next time. 

The following wednesday we had kids from Saru come to ISK but I wasnt able to be there because I had the fringe festival rehearsal. The next wednesday the same kids from Saru came back and it was so much fun because we made little sock puppets with them and then we had a small show type thing and later each heARTS student and one kid did it one at a time ( the show). Some of them were very shy and others were very happy and excited to present their sock puppets to us. 

I am really glad I joined HeARTS because I think it is one of the most meaningful things and service groups here at ISK. Instead of just having meetings and planning fundraisers like most groups, we actually do something and help the kids directly. It is so nice to know that we're making these kids happy and maybe helping some of them heal. It was scary at first because as Ms. Blanchard was talking to us from a psychologist point of view, I started thinking what if I do something wrong? is it my responsibility if I dont make the child happy? But as time went by I realized that that is not a problem at all and it is really easy to talk and play with these kids. I hope we start making our own money in this group to have our own supplies and continue visiting hospitals. I hope that even after we leave that this group will be as successful as it is now and continues growing. 

Senior Mara Trip 2014

This year for our IC senior trip we were as usual supposed to go to coast, unfortunately this year because of security issues the school had to change that and they decided to take us to the Mara instead with the ME to WE group. I already went on this trip in 10^th grade and I remember it being an amazing trip so I was really excited for this one, especially since my entire grade was going as well (almost all).

This trip started off badly and emotionally as 9 of my classmates and 3 of my best friends had to stay behind for possession of substances. We left at 11 instead of 9 after having all of our bags searched by our chaperones. Everyone who went on the trip, the teachers included, was sad and shocked. After that we left knowing that the ride to the camp would take 5hours. When we arrived there, the facilitators, the Me to We people were very welcoming, sympathetic and friendly to all of us. They then showed us our tents and told us how they are trying to economize water, and explained how everything worked there (showers, meal time, rules). The boys had a different camp than the girls and that made us all think that we weren’t treated like 17 and 18 year olds. Earlier in that day, we visited a local school, and the kids were so exited to see us and wanted to play with us so bad, then in the afternoon, we just got back to the camp and played some games and hung out. It was nice at night for dinner when everyone was together as a grade. We were then divided in 4 groups (A, B, C, D) and I ended up in group D. Then Tuesday, we visited some Masai villages and houses and we also did some service and helped the Masai mothers, we carried around 20litres of water from the river to their houses which was about 3km away, and that was the most challenging and hard thing we did in that trip (it wasn’t that bad for me because I already did it in 10^th grade). Then we listened to some of their stories and that was quite interesting. Later in that day we started building a school for the local Masai kids. In addition to that we had a beading workshop with the Masai Mamas, which was also fun and interesting.

On Wednesday we went on a safari very early in the morning and that was really nice because we got to see many animals, had lunch in the park and bonded with each other. In the afternoon we did some masai training activities.

On Thursday morning we planted trees and later we went to the Fairmont, which was very nice, we had lunch there and we got to swim and hang out with our grade.

We came back home after five days, and we were all really tired after everything we had done, and the school days seemed so boring after the exiting activities we did back in Masai mara. I thought the 10^th grade trip was better than this one, especially because of the incident on Monday morning which kind of ruined the mood from the beginning. However I still enjoyed it and learned a lot about the masai cultures, we did some service, played with masai kids, laughed a lot at nights, and even though the sanitary facilities (bathrooms, showers…) were not what we’re used to back at home, the trip was good.

The Greenhouse Project

About 2months ago I joined a new club at ISK called the Greenhouse project, created at the end of last year. The goal of the club is to raise money for other clubs, such as Friends of Marich, with which the club is connected. At first it was a subsection of Friends of Marich but it eventually became a club of its own, working along with Friends of Marich. The way in which we will raise money is by growing vegetables in the Greenhouse that we have planted next to the science classes. At first I joined the Greenhouse for the business experience and ended up also being part of an agricultural experience. Before I joined the club, it started off with the investment of volunteers. These people bought shares of the business which they could possibly make back.

The Amiran Team who provided us with the Greenhouse and had people come in school for a technical training on a Wednesday after school. A lady named Emma came in to teach us the basics of the greenhouse and explain all the equipment that came with the Farmer’s Kit. We learned a lot of different things like how to clean the greenhouse and how to prepare the land in order to plant and what each chemical is for. She had a long and detailed presentation and then we all went to the Greenhouse where we got to do and see what she was talking about.

In the Greenhouse we now have two different types of tomatoes, watermelon, sweet melon, chili and red pepper. I stayed a couple times after school with other members of the club to help transplant and water the plants; we dug holes for the pants, poured some fertilizer in it and mixed it. Seeing as I have never done something like this before it is all very new and interesting to me, it is also a bit hard sometimes because I am not used to it but Finote is always there to remind me what to do and how to do it which is very helpful. We now each have to sign up for shifts to water the plants during activity and lunch time. I hope everything goes as planned from here and I look forward to the harvest in the next months.

Language week!

Last week was the language week here at ISK, we had many various activities planned for all the native speakers. Firstly there was the assembly last wednesday which was a lot of fun, we had 3 flash mobs and 3 songs played in 3 different languages (french spanish and swahili). As a native french speaker I was part of the french song dance, all the french speaking students had to dance to the song "Alors on dance" and it was a lot of fun. After that, on the same day there was a really interesting activity. Students were supposed to teach teachers their language. I happily agreed to that with my friend Saba and at first we were a bit nervous as to what is going to happen and how are we going to do this. We had a class of 5 teachers (students) who were Mr. and Mrs. Curry, Mr. Robbins, Ms. Bock and Coach Nixon. I think of all groups we had the most interesting ones because the students we had were like typical high school students; coming in class late, not always focusing, having side conversations etc... Overall we taught them how to greet people, ask their name, and at the end we had some extra time so we taught them a few other things like how to count to 15 and how to ask for a coffee or a beer (their idea). It was a lot of fun, it took them some time to get it right and it was really really intertaining, I thought it was really interesting to be behind the desk and to see what it's like to be a teacher and how it is from their point of view. If I had to do it again I would definitely do it, it was a bit of a challenge to get them to focus and it really helped me to see what teachers experience everyday with language classes and how it is important for us to make it easier for them as it is a tough job.

heARTS!!

Hearts heeling program: The ISK Healing Arts Program is a new program at ISK, that my bestfriend Nandi Blanchard has created, and which I’m helping to fund and develop, in which we will make use of the arts in order to help children in recovery in various hospitals around Nairobi through therapy. By using visual arts, musical (auditory) arts, as well as dramatic arts, we will undergo creative activities and exercises with children in order to stimulate them mentally and perform therapeutic relief. We will raise our own money for our own supplies and equipment and become a self-sustained organization. This is a very new group so we haven’t really done much yet, we met a few times to discuss meeting time and such. 

The first real meeting we had was this week Wednesday after school with Mrs. Elleby. For a first meeting I have to admit that it was so much fun. We basically talked about a lot of things including our fears/hopes/expectations for the group, we played at some games with our eyes closed, Mrs. Elleby discussed how important it is to be around children as she knows so much about it. We all had the same ideas, we hope that this will be a successful group, that people will join because they want to and because they like the arts perhaps, rather than joing just for CAS hours, we want to be able to connect with the kids, we want to help them and put smiles on their faces etc...

I hope that we will achieve all our goals and that going to the hospitals and entertaining the kids will actually make them happy, also that we raise our own money to get our own supplies and that we advertise this group as much as we can, as I think it is an amazing idea and community service group that is growing.

We will also meet for the next 3 Wednesdays and then after the Christmas break and hopefully by then we will be ready!