The Spark I Didn’t Know I Needed

The Spark

There’s always one moment in life that you do not see coming, the kind that sneaks up on you and changes the way you think. For me, it happened during the SPARK workshop, when we were asked a question that seemed harmless: “What issue do you find the most concerning in our school?”. To be frank, I thought I’d answer it in just seconds, but instead it made me halt in my tracks, forced me to slow down, dampen the noise and actually listen to myself.

Something I didn’t realize I’d been avoiding for quite a while.

As everyone around me began to share their ideas, something in me changed drastically, all within a few minutes. Their honesty, passion and stories all widened my perspective in a way I didn’t expect. It made me realize that caring about something isn’t enough; one has to understand why it matters to them. That very moment became the spark that stayed with me long after that session ended.

My SPARK Challenge

After that moment settled in, the issue I cared about didn’t just appear; it unfolded slowly, as if it had been waiting for me to finally stop rushing through everything. What kept coming back to me was the way Student Prefects and badge holders, the very students meant to represent leadership, often feel the opposite of empowered. I’ve seen so many of them carrying honorable titles, but not confidence. Responsibilities, but not a real, raw voice of their own and it bothered me more than I admitted. It’s strange, no? How can one walk right past a problem every day and only realize its drastic weight when you’re forced to listen to yourself properly?

That’s why I chose Power as my action. Awareness wasn’t enough anymore. I wanted to establish something that actually helps prefects, badge-holders and even those who want to lead, but don’t know how to start. Since the workshop, my idea has shifted from a simple thought into something more concrete. Having open conversations, instant action/response to situations and encouragement. Generally, a way to make them feel heard and respected. It’s currently in progress, but it’s real… and that’s enough for now.

What I’m learning

If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far, it’s that ‘A one man army will never be able to accomplish things that will change a community’ and the more I sit with that thought, the more it makes sense in ways I didn’t expect. Because real change, the kind that actually shifts a school, a system, a mindset, doesn’t happen because one person tries to carry everything alone. It happens when people move together, a team, and for me, that team was a small group of students from my school who had the same thing in mind when we were on the bus to the SPARK workshop: ‘What’s this for?’ A question that sounded like a joke at first, but somehow carried more truth than we realized. None of us knew what to expect, none of us had a plan at all! Yet all of us were thinking about the same uncertainty, the same curiosity, the same quiet hope that maybe this workshop would mean something. Maybe that moment hit me harder because I wasn’t just another student on that bus; I was the one who manages the prefect team, the badge holders, the small group of leaders who look to me for direction even when I’m still figuring things out myself. Being in that position changes the way you see things. You start noticing the quiet ones, the overwhelmed ones, the ones who carry responsibility like it’s heavier than the badge they wear. Sitting there, surrounded by them, I realized how much pressure we all pretend not to feel.

What surprised me most was how easily leadership can become lonely if you let it. I always thought guiding others meant having answers, but the workshop challenged that completely. It made me see that real leadership, the kind that actually matters, is built on shared effort, shared doubt, shared growth, not on one person trying to hold everything together. That was the part that shook me the most.

My next step now feels different, more grounded. I want to create spaces where my prefects and badge holders can speak honestly, not just perform leadership. I want them to feel supported, not supervised. Maybe it starts with small check-ins, maybe with open conversations, maybe with letting them lead in ways that feel natural to them. Whatever it becomes, I know it has to be something we build together, not something I force alone. Because a team only becomes a team when everyone feels seen, and that’s the kind of leadership I want to grow toward.