Cindy – November 9, 2020 Journal Entry #45

At the beginning of my CAS project I was not that good at communicating with my partners and mentor. Sometimes I was shy about sharing my ideas or things I thought that would make the project way better. I managed to improve this because our teachers and school in general make us do projects where we work in groups and present orally, which made me used to it. After some time, I was very good at expressing my ideas, listening my partners and combine all of our ideas to make a great one. An example of this is Youth Taking Action, because we work on 3 areas that were chosen based on the interest of the 3 members that incorporate the project (animal wellness, social wellness and caring for the environment). I have been practicing communication in both YTA and the cultural exchange by constantly being in video calls, meetings in person and chatting through email and WhatsApp in order to have a clear understanding of each other’s ideas and avoid exclusion in order to improve our teamwork’s potential. Since my team is composed by two of my close friends, it is easy for me to communicate with them due to the friendship and trust that is already built up from past experiences, which is something that has helped me practice this factor throughout CAS. A great story about when I was really good at communicating was when I presented my project with Amanda and Kati in CAS Night, where my friends, parents and members of La Paz could hear about our project. I am very proud because I was in front of people I really care about and manage to hide my nerves and deliver the information effectively. Yet, when we were creating videos to get donations for our projects I was constantly frustrated because I would forget what to say. This was because I was overthinking the information and trying to memorize it in a matter of seconds, which is when I realized that being spontaneous was my best option for future videos with my team. I will keep practicing by meeting with my team weekly to discuss plans and new ideas.