For my service, I chose this event, Bal Mela 2026, because I feel like I love to connect with underprivileged kids and teach them and like just give them a day of fun because they also deserve to have some fun, right?  Bal Mela, took place on a Saturday for about three hours where we set up a kind of carnival for the underprivileged kids from government schools and we give them just a day of fun. So, one area in our school managed the art and craft activities, one area managed the sports, one area managed the trampoline, the spinning carnival, and all the bouncy castles and the Ferris wheel, and one another another space managed the food items. So, it was really like a carnival where all the kids came and had fun. So, I was stationed at the art and craft area where I made tattoos for all the kids and just really whatever they wanted to make on their forearms or their face. Basically, the point of this service was to address a global significance issue which was quality education and having just a good day of fun because the children at the government schools, they do not necessarily have all the facilities and all the equipments that help them have fun and really enjoy their school lives. It’s really important to just relax for a day and have a day filled of fun. So, this service counted for them. So, just really seeing the smiles on their faces was really was really nice and it really made me feel like I’m doing something for them and not just for the service. So, every year I participate in this Bal Mela and this year I did the same thing. I made tattoos for the kids whatever they wanted really and all of them said, thank you. And I really engaged with them, and asked questions such as what’s your name? What’s your age? What class do you study in currently? Do you like tattoos? If so, which tattoos do you like? If they drew a butterfly on a tattoo, I used I asked them that, do you like butterflies? Me too. So, it was really a nice way to engage with the kids and help them just enjoy and have a good fun filled day. And this was a service because I helped the kids get whatever tattoos they want along with my classmates which who participated participated in many other sports activities or many other art and craft activities such as origami. So, we teach the children how to do origami also. And we also taught them how to play some sports if they didn’t know. And that was really a good day for us also because we got to show them how we how our activities how our hobbies play a role in helping the children have a really good day.

LO1: Identify own strengths and develop areas of growth.
So, obviously being in the Bal Mela, we were offered a choice to whether choose an activity that we’re good at or do something that we want to learn and we want to teach the kids. It was actually preferred that we choose an activity where we are already good at and teach the underprivileged kids and help them have fun. So, for example, if you were in tattoo making, you need to know the basics of like doodling or sketching because it’s not good to really ruin their forearms or faces just because you don’t know how to draw. And also, it would take a little time if you do not know the activity, but yet you’re still there to teach the kids. One aspect was that we identified our own strengths and we developed areas of growth. So, for example, if someone doesn’t know a sport but actually knows the rules, they can actually spend a few minutes learning the sport and then teaching it to the kids. In my example, I knew how to do basic tattoo making, but there were some areas where I didn’t feel expert at all. For example, drawing a complex structure of let’s say a donut or a cake, I was really nervous because I didn’t want to ruin the kids’ faces or arms because I did not know how to draw some things. I knew how to draw a few simple things, but there were areas of growth obviously. So here I identified my own strengths and uh which were doodling and making tattoos, and then I developed areas of growth. So I learned from my teacher who was sitting next to me about how to draw some complex structures such as a cake or 3D structures, if the kids wanted to draw it on if the kids wanted to have it tattooed on their forearm. So I learned it from my teachers and that way I identified my areas of growth and also used my strengths to help the kids have a actually good day.

LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken developing new skills in the process.

In this event, there were some challenges undertaken by the students as well as the government schools to get all the kids to the school at once in different buses. Now, there was a huge quantity of students that were coming to the Bal Mela, which was around 2,000 kids from almost all the government schools in Surat. So, this was really a big quantity of students that were attending the Bal Mela and it was really tricky to control the flow of the event because there were different stations such as the dance stations, the arts and craft station and the sports station. So, we wanted every child to experience all the stations but we couldn’t do it at once. So, we helped the core members draft a plan and we also learned about that plan because we wanted to help as much as we could to maintain the flow of the event. For example, if one school comes first and the other school is in line, the first school will go to the dance station and then to the arts and craft station while the second school will attend the dance station. After the first school was done with the arts and craft station, they went on to the sports station while the second school attended the craft station while the third school came and attended the dance station. So, that flow went on and we helped teachers to maintain it by asking the kids and the teachers their school name so that we could suggest that what which station do they have to go next. And we always sent the schools that were in the arts and craft area to the sports station because that’s what that’s where they had to go next. So, we helped to maintain the maintain the flow and the challenges were undertaken to solve these problems. This was one challenge, maintaining the flow of the event. And another challenge was that there were many kids at once who wanted to get their tattoos drawn and there was a really big line. Now, I couldn’t keep up with it with it because there were so many kids and even though I wasn’t the only one at the tattoo center, there were many kids who just piled up in one line at one for one person. For example, all the kids were in line for me. They didn’t divide themselves to go to the other people who were making tattoos. So, this was one challenge where I could not keep up with their speed and time, so really I helped them to understand that I could not draw all of them tattoos if they crowded up. So, I helped them understand that they should make a line or divide themselves into groups and go to each station, so that way everyone can get their tattoos drawn nicely and patiently so that they could enjoy looking at it because it was drawn really nicely. So, I helped them understand and then they understood what I was saying and they made a line and divided themselves into smaller groups so that everyone could have that their tattoos drawn. So, this was one challenge that I undertook and I developed my skills of management and event flow in the process.

LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.
So in this experience, I showed my commitment by waking up early at around 6:00 a.m. and then coming to school on a Saturday and for continuous period of three to four hours staying in school and really putting all my best in the Bal Mela event to make sure that the kids have a good day. Then we also helped them dance in the end which included Garba and which was a really tiring dance and even in the scorching heat, we did not move for around three hours, we stayed at our stations and helped all the kids make tattoos and made them happy even though there was no air conditioning or fans in the area, we stayed there for three hours and we even danced with the kids because they asked us to and even though it was really hot, we persevered and committed to the CAS experience not just because it is a service, because we wanted the children to actually be happy and to feel that they have actually had a day full of fun and activities. So this was one commitment that I made and moreover, there was a rule that one should really learn how to do the activity and teach it before they come to school on the Bal Mela event day. So the night before, I looked at all the other templates of tattoo making and I learned a few basic tattoos and how to color them and I planned it all out so that on the D-day I did not ruin the children’s forearms or cheeks because I made a simple mistake. Hence, I committed and persevered to CAS experiences even though challenges were undertaken.

LO6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.
The issue aimed in this event was the quality education that the government schools students were receiving and the lack of equipments and the enjoyments that they have in the government schools. So in most government schools, children which are underprivileged, in most of them children do not have the right equipments or the many study materials to have a really good school life and effective even. So this event was really to help them enjoy this one day in their lives that they don’t have to study. And we do not know that how much they enjoy each day and how much they feel that someone has said that okay, you should enjoy today, you should play today. Even though they study hard every day, there are some opportunities of fun that they miss out on. So this was really an experience to help them feel good and help them experience a carnival like never before. Even though they cannot attend, even though they haven’t attended yet the biggest carnivals or maybe they haven’t played many other games, but it was fun to teach them all of that because even if they do not know things, it is fun to teach them and it’s always new to learn something new. The global significance issue is lack of education and a quality education that the children receive. In this event, many students of our school teach their students how to play different games such as football, frisbee, cricket, and at arts and craft session also, we teach them how to do origami, we taught them how to make pipe cleaner flowers, and we also taught them how to do mehndi and make cards for each other. So that was really a nice experience because how many times a day do they feel like they are having fun? So this experience was all about that because we wanted them to have the best day, and we provided them with snacks, food, and fun so that they could really enjoy a Bal Mela. So this issue was addressed in the Bal Mela and this engagement really had the students gain a nice perspective of fun and carnival and experience something really fun for a day, and this happens every year, so we are really glad that we are able to provide these students with a really nice day and a day full of fun and food and activities.

Overall, in this carnival, we helped students from government schools have a nice day and we provided them with a service which included dance activities, sports and arts and crafts, and we provided them with food and helped them enjoy one day where they don’t have to study. All in all, I think that in this service, I developed some new skills which included management, event flow management, uh social skills, communication skills, and some learner profiles I developed were caring and open-minded because I was really open-minded to all the students having uh having come to the tattoo station and I engaged with them with the caring attitude because I wanted them to know how nice it is to have a day full of fun at the carnival and I engaged with them with questions like what’s your name or etc. So this way I developed my management skills as well and my communication skills with a caring and open-minded attitude. Overall, this service was really meaningful, not because it was a service, but because I felt that these kids should have one day of fun and I was really glad to provide it for them along with all my classmates.