Community From Afar

In the last few weeks, the world has been experiencing lots of changes, especially due to the outbreak of Covid-19. Costa Rica has been no exception. Schools are closed, borders are closed, lots of events are cancelled and the recommendation is to stay home or practice social distancing. Clearly this has a huge impact on myself, my community, my country and even my CAS project. This may also cause uncertainty as it is not known how long this will last.

The first and main change that is hard to adapt to and most people worldwide are facing is the recommendations to stay home or practice social distancing. To prevent the virus from spreading, governments and IGOs such as the World Health Organization are recommending people to stay home or stay at least a meter away from other people. Events are canceled, schools are closed, and people should not be hosting events even if they are small. This is affecting me and members of the community as we have to take online classes this week. It is harder as we have to do everything from home and there is no direct contact with teachers to ask questions or for feedback. This is also having a huge effect on my project as I am unable to plan events such as clean-ups, workshops, or fundraisers for an unidentified amount of time. The role of my project is to clean, improve, and educate. I am unable to do most of this as they mostly involve interaction. 

The effects will most likely continue after the pandemic starts to get solved. At a personal and community level, students will probably be a little behind at school, although we are taking online classes, it is difficult for teachers to teach a lot of materials, and it is harder for us to learn as effectively. At a national  and global level the consequences will probably be much more serious. Costa Rica is a tourism based country, and a few hours ago it closed its borders for an undefined period of time. In the middle of the high season, this will have a large impact on tourism-based companies and the country in general. It won’t be as easy to solve as the low season will start soon and the country will have to wait until december for the high season to start again. My project could also be impacted by this. First of all I will most likely get behind as these weeks the amount of things I can do have been exponentially reduced, meaning that  I have to rearrange and organize everything for when I am able to do it again. It could also have an impact on my fundraisers as local businesses will be affected and less able to make donations or help out.

The most effective actions that can be taken right now is to follow orders from WHO and/or the government to help this be solved quickly and effectively. It is necessary to adapt to the current changes and be helpful. The sooner it is solved, the easier and faster things will come back to normal. It is also important to start looking towards the future. For example, although I can’t really do much related to activity or service for my project, I could focus on  the creativity part and start thinking and planning things for the future. I can take advantage of this time and start thinking about what to do in the next few months to recover the events that I was unable to do in these weeks and start planning more things for the future of the project. I can also use time to work on important school things such as MUN or the spanish IA. It is important to look at the positive side of the event and take advantage of the time and ‘opportunities’ that it provides us.

As it may be seen, the Covid-19 outbreak has had an effect on my personal  life, my community, my country, and my project. They come from simple and small changes that are currently happening to bigger and more serious issues that could happen in a close future. However, it is important to be prepared and plan things out to recover the lost time and opportunities. It is also crucial to be aware of what to do and follow orders from the government to  stay safe and help out to solve the issue as soon as possible. The only and most important thing to do is adapt and be informed, with everyone’s help, the world can go back to normal soon.