Ever since I have memory I have wanted to make a difference in the community around me. Going to beach cleanups and volunteering in castration campaigns for pet owners from low resources has been always part of life. Is for this reason that today I am so passionate about fighting to improve the communities I am part of, not only geographically but also other communities I am a member of. Being able to make a difference is what motivates me into being a better person and student since I know my effort can make a change. However, due to the recent pandemic, the projects I have made with other classmates have been going through a rough trip. The first project I am part of is Youth Taking Action that aims on improving three different aspects of the community equally. Then the second project I am part of is the Cultural Exchange project that consists of making a cultural exchange between Costarrican culture and indigenous Mexican culture from Quintana Roo.
The project of Youth Taking Action started in June of 2019 in which myself and two more classmates, these being Cindy Diaz and Katherine Castillo, made an organization that had as its main goal to improve the community around us. We believe that in order to achieve this goal we need to focus on the three different aspects that make up a community which is the social aspect, the animal aspect, and the environmental aspect. For this reason, we have organized different events that included the direct interaction between individuals. Due to sanitary restrictions, we haven’t been able to volunteer in animal rescue centers or do trash cleanups, however, this didn’t stop us. We decided to use our thinking skills and create a visual event that allowed people to be socially active without risking getting infected with COVID-19. As leaders in our school community, we need to act not only as communicators but also risk takers. We will encourage all of the high school students to attend our virtual meeting that will be all about the need for social interaction in times of quarantine and act as a therapy session for those students that feel stressed out about having online school classes. Youth Taking Action will not give up and will make sure to help out those around us even if we need to do it through a video call.
My other CAS project is the Cultural Exchange project with indigenous Mexican culture,thus meaning that my partner Cindy and I will travel to this country. In this case, the current pandemic gives us an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that we won’t be able to fly out this December but rather wait until June when the pandemic has calmed down. This gives us more time to fundraise money for the trip expenditures and the cost of the activities we will do with the indigenous communities. COVID-19 has brought down the global economy with it, for which reason our original plan of funding most of our trip by donations won’t work. That’s when we came up with the plan of selling food to order and use different marketing techniques to do so. Our first sell was with churros and although it was very exhausting to make over 200 churros in one morning, it was definitely worth it. I went all over different towns delivering churros and selling extra bags in between 4 different towns. We made over 170 dollars in profit just from that day alone. I have many more ideas like selling raffle tickets or giving the customer a variety of flavors from sweet to salty in our next sale. Many people didn’t believe in me when I explained this project to them, giving me the encouragement and motivation to prove the world wrong and reach our goal of creating a cultural exchange with Mexican indigenous populations and fundraising the money for the trip ourselves, even in the middle of an economic crisis.
Brian Tracy once said, “Never consider the possibility of failure; as long as you persist, you will be successful”. As this important figure mentions, determination and hard work is the key to success. Both of my projects have become stepping stones to the larger epiphany in the brain that I can do whatever I propose myself to do if I find a source of motivation and place all of my effort into doing so. The other IB classes pushed me to become a better student and this quarantine opened my eyes to the capability inside of me. I found my source of motivation that is taking advantage of my geopolitical location in which I, as a woman, have access to top tier education and are encouraged to make a difference in this world. I want to accomplish all my goals in name for those women that still live oppressed and fight for their rights for equal education. I was able to bring up my grades, which were already good, to even better in online classes that were not an obstacle to block my new source of inspiration.
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