We are delighted to share a blog written by Vedika Giridhar Mandapati, a student at Pathways World School, Aravali who is part of a team delivering a Global Goals project for the 2018-19 Global Goals Competition.
Their project is among over 800 social action projects currently running as part of the GSL movement and we are excited to be supporting them to design and lead positive social change in their community.
This was perhaps the best project we’d ever participated in.
Project Overview
Our project, Apno Gaon 2018 (translation for ‘Our Village’), was a celebration of United Nations Day. We identified a community of 11 village schools surrounding our own and aimed to create a greater awareness for the Sustainable Development Gaols in their localities.
We are trying to tackle the issues of ignorance towards basic hygiene, conflict-resolution and the lack of opportunities for locals to implement the SDGs. We were inspired to begin this project after observing that the annual UN Day celebrations (for the past 10 years or so) didn’t do enough to highlight the aims and achievements of the supra-national organization.
Our Journey
Participating in the GSL Global Goals competition has allowed the team to successfully reflect on our own development as leaders and social advocates. Among other things, we have developed managerial skills, learned how to document budgets and proposals, enhanced our formal and mass communication skills and furthered our knowledge of time-management by dividing our tasks into short-term and long-term assignments.
Our biggest challenge was probably changing existing systems in school because the event had run the same way for ten years or so. We overcame this challenge by presenting creative proposals that ensured the event would be student-run, so as not to provide the school with additional work.
The Next Chapter
The experience has been very fulfilling and it taught us a lot more about the demographic surrounding our school as well as highlighted our own potential for success. I’d definitely recommend that young adults around the world become more engaged with community service projects- it really helps broaden your horizons and it gives you a more balanced perspective of the world.
The 2018-19 GSL Global Goals Competition is now open and runs until June 2019. If you belong to one of the 700+ teams of students currently delivering a social action project as part of the competition we would love to hear from you and feature your blog and project photos on our website to inspire others.
