CAS learning outcomes

Over these past 2 weeks the learning outcomes exhibited through my work are planning and initiating an activity, working collaboratively with others, engaging with issues of global significance, undertaking a new challenge and considering ethical implications of my project.

The first is most prevalent within my planning of a dress down day at our school to raise funds for my project, which I had been in communication with our school president for many months to organize. I finally got a date set for the 7th of October. Around a week before, which I thought was enough time, I began emailing our school administration to make sure it was approved and asked permission to plan it for all of the school’s campuses. A few challenges I faced during this was my communication with the administration. The head of our school who you are supposed to contact for approval is extremely busy, and therefore I didn’t receive a response to my email, so I sent it to her secretary whom I also didn’t receive a response from, so I found her to confirm my approval in person. I got the approval on wednesday, my original plan was to send the younger parents an email explaining any project to hopefully get donations as for the younger campuses the 500 colones cost is optional. Since I didn’t want to send my email before confirming approval, I sent it early Thursday morning, which looking back, I should have done instantly after her approval on Wednesday. But when I sent it I received the news that an email had been sent last night about the purpose of the dress down day to parents already. This was an issue as the administration had gotten confused surrounding the purpose, as I was also emailing them and announcing a separate initiative for non profits in our area which the head of our school thought the funds were going to.Therefore I instantly went to talk to them in person and went around to get approval for a clarification email, which I drafted and sent early in the day, but nevertheless wasn’t sent till 6 pm after asking for it to be sent again. Before the clarification email was finally sent I felt uncomfortable with the situation as one of the directors of these non profits is a mom and read the email, and contacted me thanking me for the initiative. I also didn’t want the parents donating to think it was going to a certain cause when it actually wasn’t. Therefore a big lesson I took away is when planning something with our schools administration to coordinate everything with much advance and talk to them in person constantly making sure everything is clear. Nevertheless I had announced the purpose of the dress down day at our schools various morning meetings and the fundraising was a success, raising over 130 mil colones.  

Furthermore, even though the organization of a dress down day also fits within working collaboratively with others, this outcome has been most prominent with the work I’ve been doing to rescue and find an adoptive family for 3 kittens and the mom. I’ve collaborated with a classmate who graciously took the baby cats in to foster them for a few weeks while I found them a family as well as the vet who is helping me tremendously to figure out what to do with the mom. Collaboration has also been key in finding adoptive families, from having people share a poster I made on their social medias to spreading through word of mouth that these cats need a home. Additionally rescuing this family of cats connects to both undertaking a new challenge and considering the ethical implications. This is sort of a new challenge as I had never rescued cats before, partly because adult cats are hard to catch and I knew I wouldn’t be able to foster them as my other cats wouldn’t accept other cats and it’s a dangerous situation to put them in with my dogs. But with the help of others the cats are all in a safe place, with one kitten already adopted. Nevertheless the ethical implications of rescuing this family have been sort of an internal debate as with many of the other animals I’ve rescued, I feel really terrible for having to leave the mom at the vet in a cage for so long, and splitting the family up. The mom has been in a cage for 2 weeks as the first week she had to stay to recover from being neutered and I thought she would then be going to the shelter, where she could roam freely, but the vet thought it would be a good idea to keep her there for a while longer in case someone wanted to adopt her. I’ve tried to change this by finding her a foster family or convincing my parents to allow her to stay with us even if it’s just in a room, but have not yet been successful. Even though I’m not able to give these animals exactly the care I think they deserve, for now it’s the only feasible option and I have to remind myself it’s for the better and only temporary as they were in much more danger living on the street. 

Lastly a constant learning outcome put to use within my project has been engaging with issues of global significance, these cats were living on the street and one of the kittens was in bad shape with an eye infection as well as so many parasites. The mom as I later found out had also been shot as they found the bullets in her skin. Getting them off the street and with proper families not only stops their suffering but also means they will all get neutered and won’t continue to reproduce on the streets contributing to the street animal population.