We are delighted to share a blog written by students Shelby, Dohan and Vinny from Chadwick International School, who is part of team CISAI delivering a Global Goals project for the 2020-21 GSL Global Goals Competition.
Their project is among over 957 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.
We were pleased to see people opening up to us with their concerns and were proud that we could provide the minimum help for the people who are having a hard time.
Project Summary
The need that was identified was depression, and specifically the need of students within our community who feel depressed and feel like there is no one to listen to their problems, and need help and advice regarding such concerns. We were inspired to do this because we felt like many other students, and also ourselves had from time to time felt down and upset yet had no one to listen to-and creating an outlet for people to share their concerns seemed like a good method to help improve the situation. Especially during times of COVID, since face-to-face interaction has become difficult and because of the corona blues, depression caused by the ongoing pandemic, we thought it would be appropriate to deal with this issue.
Our project is centered around an anonymous concern counseling system (We Listen, We Care) and an Instagram account (@for_tomorrow) that consistently uploads motivational quotes and articles/ information regarding student depression in our community (Korea). Also, through the counseling system, we provide a safe space for anyone to share any concerns or stories they have in life. You can share them through an anonymous google form, which will be responded to within a short period of time.
The Journey
The skills that we have developed are mainly focused on time management, teamwork, and perseverance. Because we usually prefer to work alone, not with a strict deadline or a hard timeline, because we are used to it, but we learned that working with a team can spread the workload out and manage the time better- not only does working with others help us motivate me to finish the work, but also means that we can focus on areas of work that we can “specialize” in, such as writing articles and statements. The areas that we are weak, such as time management and managing and leading, can be covered by others who are good at such macro-management skills. Our biggest challenge at the moment seems to be perseverance; we have trouble “keeping up the good work”, so to speak. We would like to improve my consistency by deciding on a hard deadline by ourselves to upload the articles and motivate others.
The Next Chapter
We would recommend people to get involved in such projects. Our call to action is that getting involved in projects that can help people and influence the community around us gives a sense of satisfaction to the participants; to labor on a project and see its outcomes bear fruit is on its own fulfilling, and to see people be influenced and helped by such effort bolsters that sense of altruistic happiness. Also, making an effort to do a project that has to get involved with the “real world”, and interact with the local community, is an experience that helps others develop social and management skills that cannot be found elsewhere, and worth the effort.
