The First Step In My Cas Journey: The Mangrove Restoration Project

Here we are. This is the first CAS project I will be involved in. Since I have not yet come up with an idea for a CAS project that will truly affect our communities, I decided it would be appropriate to involve myself in some way in a project instead of just being idle until the perfect idea comes. After seeing the efforts that Sebastian (a friend of mine who is one year older, you can see his blog here: https://sebasmassimo.tumblr.com/) in his Mangrove Restoration project, I was nothing short of fascinated. It was a project of such large scale, one that affected not only our community, but nature itself. Sebastian told me that the scale of the project came with a price: He would not be able to finish it in time for his graduation, as to be expected of a nature restoration project. So he was taking help from younger students (us) to later on entrust his project to one of us, in order to keep the cause alive. Seeing this opportunity, I instantly took it. It was laid out there, for the taking. I feel like this will be an experience I’ll carry for the rest of my life.

Now, the Purpose of this project, of course, is to help the Avellanas Mangrove biome be able to grow and sustain itself, after being damaged in a natural catastrophe years ago. But that is not all. The reason this project transcends just this community is that one of our main goals is to spread awareness of the importance of the mangrove, and direct people’s attention towards this important biome, who serves as a birthplace for many marine life species. Our objective is to create a ripple effect: spark interest in Mangrove Restoration by drawing attention towards our efforts.

Now, this project, like any other, will come with hardships. I have a few obstacles that I can see coming my way while working in this project.

Mainly:

1. Lack of interest

2. Unpredictable Response from people.

Ok, so one step at a time. First off, both these issues are related, in a way. While Sebastian worked mostly directly with the mangrove (Planting trees, cleaning and such), I plan on channeling my approach towards increasing the range of our project’s reach. For example, I am going to set up a Kickstarter/GoFundMe/IndieGoGo page to get reliable funding, and to involve people from overseas in our efforts, by keeping them updated and engaged in our endeavour. I will also focus on more local advertising, getting support from local businesses and such. The main issue is, there is no telling if people will be interested in all of this. Because of the nature of the internet, the page may gain little to no traction, or get a lot of views. Once we publish the page, there is absolutely no control in wether or not we will get the attention we want.

For an example of how much of an unpredictable wild card these funding pages can be, see this: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zackdangerbrown/potato-salad

This man created a project who just said:

“I want to make Potato Salad”

That is the entirety of the page. By the time this blog post was written, he has gained over 55 thousand dollars. I think this speaks for itself on how unreliable these can be.

This is my concern. There is no telling what humans will do and can do. We’re truly unpredictable. And I guess it’s what makes us special, in a way.

I’m sure it will go well. If I pour my heart and soul into it, just like in coffee, the cream will rise to the top. I just have to go the extra mile to make this project special.

Oh well. Doesn’t matter. I’m confident in my ability to help this project. There’s no telling how this will go until I start getting to work, no point in stressing about this now. I’ll just take it easy, one step at a time.