You'll never guess where we're going!

In my last few posts, I've mentioned LaSERIO 2016 quite a few times, and this post will be no different, I'm afraid! 

This weekend my team met up for the first time since selection, for a two day 'training' (not really training, but I don't know how else to describe it!) event. We had the opportunity to hear from people who had been on other international trips, and quiz them about all things money and prep. It was fantastic to watch videos and see photographs from service trips all over the world, particularly Team Ecuador from 2014 as they are all the same age as us. Younger groups have trips planned for them, whilst older groups plan it themselves which is what we are doing. It was great to see how Team Ecuador found the planning stages, and it helped put our minds at rest as well (we've been feeling rather unprepared!)

Then we spent quite a few hours researching and working out where we will be going. Talk about improving researching skills! 

Before we met up, we had all completed a Survey Monkey to see what part of the world we wanted to go to. This meant that the research was already narrowed down to the Caribbean and South America, but where did we actually want to go?

We examined books and websites, and eventually narrowed our choices down to three possible countries, and took a vote:

Dominican Republic 

Haiti

Puerto Ricco

We completed a tally, voting for two choices each. It took a very long time but we eventually settled on Haiti! 

My knowledge of Haiti is pretty limited, learning a little of the geographical background whilst at college but I am taking the time to find out more about it.

Haiti, an island with a population of 8 million, is the poorest country in the Americas. It's 2015, and the literacy rate is still incredibly low, with 60% of those aged 15 and over being able to read and write. That said, it's gradually increasing and continues to do so. 

The next step is planning the intricate details of our volunteering; we've been looking at an organisation called 'Volunteers for Peace' who specialise in volunteering in Haiti. Their programmes fit in really well with what we would like to do, and we are hoping to work with young people affected by the earthquake in 2010. We would learn and teach them about the environment and ecology of their local area and how to live in harmony with it.

The trip going to cost in the region of £2800, which seems slightly more manageable than the £3000 we initially estimated. I am aiming for £3000 though, as then I have a bit of excess if costs end up being a bit more than we anticipate. Still not entirely sure how I'm going to get so much money together, but hoping there will be lots of opportunities! 

Wish me luch - it's all systems go on the fundraising front now! 

Seize the day

Blog posts on here seem to have been distinctly noticeable by their absence in recent months. This is a trend which started back in 2014 when university studies took over, rather than just living the student 'high life' that many seem to view it as. Settling down into a full-time office job seems to have just placed further strain on blogging, which I didn't want it to do but after spending 7 hours in front of a computer screen, the last thing I want to do when I get home is start writing posts (on a computer!)

I don't want to give up blogging (even though it may appear otherwise) and I've recently treated myself to a tablet so I hope that I will be able to starting writing on my commute to and from work, which will be good.

As a general update, I've been really busy of late doing lots of Girlguiding related things. If you've been following this blog for a while, you'll know I volunteer as a Brownie Leader*. This is something I have been doing for six years, although I have been involved with the organisation as a young member since the age of seven. There are so many things you can do before the age of 26, and now university is over and I've reached the ripe old age of 22 (I didn't blog about my birthday for the first time in ages, whoops!) I thought I would take a shot at doing some of the activities available to The Senior Section before my time has come and gone. 

So, I've registered to do my Queen's Guide Award and the Gold Duke of Edinburgh award. The Queen's Guide Award is estimated to take approximately 3 years (it must new completed in 3 years or it doesn't count!) and although the DofE doesn't have a timeframe as such, it has to be completed before the applicant's 25 birthday. 

In theory, there is quite a lot of overlap between the two projects so this should make it a bit easier, but it's still no walk in the park! I am aiming to write a blog post each time I complete something, so when I find a way of collating them altogether (I don't want to start a whole new blog if I can help it - I can hardly keep on top of this one!) I'll add a link for anyone who is interested to be able to follow my progress. 

On top of this, I have been working on the 'Going Away With...' scheme which is the qualification needed to take young members on a residential. There are section specific modules which are only valid to take a specic age group away, so I am currently working to run a weekend 'holiday' the Brownies away this summer. 

So as you can see, I've become a bit of a busy bee lately  but I have no doubt in my mind that it will all be worth it in the end, and I would hate to regret not doing these things when it's too late!

*I now help run a Rainbow group as well, but I haven't had enough time to become familiar with the programme so I feel like I'm cheating a bit to say I'm a Rainbow Leader yet!

Students are lazy.

 

I must apologise for my lack of posts recently, but there has been a LOT going on! The previous sentence lays the basis of today’s post as I thought I would write about something which has frequently bothered the country and recently been proven wrong – Lazy students. An article on the Guardian website [click here to read said article], this February has argued that this is not true. I would like to debate this slightly as what people do not seem to take into consideration is that different people work differently. Personally, alongside my degree I volunteer at a primary school, a secondary school, am still Brown Owl at Brownies, and I now have a job, too! It sounds like a lot, but if you look at the Student Volunteer Week website, you will see people that do an awful lot more than me. This shows that students aren’t necessarily the lazy, lay-abouts that we carry the reputation of. In fact, some might argue that we are exploited because to get a career you need experience [luckily I love everything I do].

On the other hand, there are many people I know [probably into the double digits!] who don’t do anything besides go out. It is a part of university life, which should not be passed up, because it is one of those things that people will no longer do once university is over. Unfortunately those people who only go out, tend to be the ones who are never up on time to attend lectures and as a result never get assignments in on time. This would be those ‘lazy’ students that people complain of. One thing people never seem to think of, though, is that they are wasting between £10,000-£30,000+ of their own money [providing they finally grow up and get a job once their degree is over]. That leads me to my final point, the likelihood is that students will gain less in government loans than they would through claiming benefits: eg Jobseeker’s allowance, housing benefit, childcare [just throwing that one in there to be extremely judgmental]…the list never seems to end! At least the ‘lazy’ students are not scrounging all of this off of the government. Also, whether or not a student is ‘lazy’, the fact that they could be bothered to apply to university in the first place suggests that they may actually want to find a decent job sometime in the future.

This post has slightly changed it’s argument as it developed, but my point still stands – everybody is an individual, and not everybody can conform to society’s ideals. Just because one person acts in one way and another acts differently, doesn’t mean everyone follows the same stereotypes.

 

xx

Quick update

I had a few weeks to kill before starting lectures again, so I decided it would be the perfect time to get back on track with life in general :)

I took up volunteering at a local primary school, working with reception children. Although it isn't a direct link with what I want my career to be in, I thought of that well known tesco motto "every little helps" and as they are reception children, their speech is not yet fully developed so I thought it could help me understand language acquisition a little better. I had my first session last week and really enjoyed it. It was interesting to see how the children take in information and how they learn new words, as well as the best method for them to do so.
I took a similar attitude to an opportunity which cropped up at a secondary school. This is to help year 11 students from other countries to learn English as an additional language. I start on Monday and then it will hopefully be every Friday thereafter , as this is a day when I have lectures.
It's a real shame I can't find paid work, but I felt that rather than not doing anything on these days, it would be worth my while gaining some experience which can hopefully aid my real (rather than part time, 'I need money or education' job) career in the future.

Anyway, as I've not seen my Grandparents in months (I've lost count of how many!) I decided that a weekend before lectures restart would be the perfect chance to spend some time with them, especially as they only live 29 minutes train journey away from me! So I spent the weekend with them an had a lovely time :)

xx