Gratitude Journal Entry:

Reflect on the people that have helped you Reflect on the people that have helped you Reflect on the people that have helped you succeed this trimester and year. What have you done that really made you proud. How did you get there and who helped you?

This year has been interesting, I formed part of an amazing group of teenagers in Tamarindo and I was lucky to work with Ashley. Ashley was my mentor for Terraza Youth group and during the time that I worked with her, I have grown and learned as an individual. Ashley has such a free spirit and it has been incredible to work with an individual that doesn’t care about what people think of her, this has given me the motivation to work to better things in my community that are not okay and ignore the criticism of other people. I used to be an individual that really cared about opinions and how the world saw me. After working in Terraza, I have become more confident with my actions and ideas because I believe in myself and the impact I can have on others. I definitely think that being a leader in the community of Tama for teenagers was hard because it’s not like I was assigned this role and I didn’t really know what I was involving myself with. Working with such a powerful group of individuals has allowed me to become a more successful- hard working person because it has taught me how to be consistent and the strength that I have within my actions.
Even though Terraza is over, I feel like this CAS project has taught me how to be a leader and how to take initiative in the community I live in to make a change. Terraza was not an easy project, it took a lot of work and dedication as well as time. It was not only a CAS project but a business and this is why I think that it was so challenging. Coming into this experience, I wanted to have an impact on the way teenagers spent their time and how they felt in society. Being a teenager is a confusing time period and because I’m going through it and I feel good with myself, I wanted to share and help others that have struggled and do not have the same opportunities as me. Working with other teenagers that also wanted to empower and create a safe place for teenagers definitely helped me become a better person because the members believed in my ideas whenever I thought they weren’t good, they taught me that I am worth uh more than the labels that society gives me.
I wanted to give a special thank you to Ashley because, during the course of Terraza, she has pushed Grace and myself to become more successful individuals. Even though I feel like there was a lot of room for improvement, I did learn a lot from her and her outgoing personality. Ashley taught me and Grace that we should do whatever we love to do and we should embrace our weirdness. She has taught me that to stand out, you don’t have to be the best but to be weird and who you really are. Ashley has taught me that in order to make a change in the community I live in, I have to step it up and really take initiative. Change doesn’t happen alone and to see a difference hard work is necessary.
I feel proud of myself for saying that I formed part of Terraza, that I attended every single event and organized everything to my full capacity. Yes, there were days that I wished I wasn’t part of Terraza, but other days I felt like such a cool teenager nobody could stop. I feel like I did make an impact in the community of Tamarindo, not only to the teenagers but also to the environment. Every month, we had beach cleanups where we worked with Costa Rica Makes Me Happy. The purpose was to collect plastic and later on reusing it to make houses and help those who live in bad conditions. Living in Tamarindo and seeing other teenagers get involved in illegal practices, has given me the motivation to make a bigger change. I think I was able to give teenagers a safe place and somewhere where they could belong, somewhere where they had opportunities and were not judged. During this experience, I got to meet a lot of other youth who live in the same community as me, and I got to learn about who they are as individuals. Now, I walk around town with a different mindset and perspective, even though Terraza is over, I still want to have an impact on the community I live in; I don’t want to be a normal teenager, I want people to know who I am and the things that I stand and fight for. I am a powerful teenager, and I hope that I can keep making Tamarindo a better place.