In Grade 11, we were taken on a trip, where we learnt about village life and rural areas and the problems. In this trip, we learnt about rural areas and villages. We were taken to Ambapani which is in Dang, Gujarat and we learnt a lot about the rural areas. There we learnt lots of many village crafts, village activities and service to the village people.We stayed at a campsite in Amba Pani where there were beautiful tree houses and play areas for us. The site was very beautiful and we could actually see mother nature in its truest form. There was no pollution, no kind of chemicals or toxins that were released into the environment. It was just pure bliss. We had the chance to step away from the city life and the urban life and go step into the rural areas and experience beauty in nature. We immersed ourself in many activities which included lip and art, farming and helping with helping farmers with rice farming, making bamboo art, making barley art, and helping an orphanage and a hostel achieve a lot by donating a hefty amount of utensils and vessels and whatever they needed for their children to feed them, to bathe them, to educate them. We donated a lot of many materials. We also helped the children’s shelter and we also went sightseeing in nature trails where we saw many kinds of trees and leaves, alongside many kinds of birds, and we learned how birds call. Moreover, a rescued leopard was sitting in the forest rescue department and we went to go see the leopard. We learned about how the officers safely capture the lost leopard which has been traveling through different forest areas and not in its designated area. We went to go see the leopard and we saw how they keep the leopard in a spacious cage and help the animal find its home the next day.

LO1 identify own strengths and develop areas for growth.

Now this was achieved by me because there were many strengths that I found for myself on the trip as long as some areas of development. As I am an art student, it was really easy for me to indulge in bamboo and various art during the trip and I made beautiful designs and designs and artworks which really expressed my creativity and expertise in the art field. However, some disadvantages, some areas of growth for myself were that I was not comfortable with doing lipan art with cow dung as the smell really bothered me. As I had never done lipan art, lipan art before, I was really scared and did not want to immerse myself in the cow dung. I was not preferring to get any pathogenic bacteria or germs on myself. However, as I saw that everyone was doing the lipan art, I I immersed myself into the art as well with bravery and courage as I almost vomited because of the smell. My teacher really supported me throughout the time and she said that it is just for a little while and then you can go and clean yourself up. So, it was all about the experience and it was really not about not liking it or liking it. It was about experiencing something for the very first time. Hence, these were some areas of growth that I needed to work on alongside some physical activity as well. Moreover, the strengths I observed for myself were art and crafts and communicating and collaborating with each other during the trip.

LO2 demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken developing new skills.

During the trip, I was really immersed in the activities that we did and there were some challenges that were undertaken by me for these activities. Firstly, the farming activity with the rice farming, we had to carry heavy bundles of rice plants back and forth to the shed and to the field again and we had to extract all the rice beans out of the plants. Now, the rice bundles were really heavy for me to carry but for my resilience and strength, I with all my other friends managed to carry and help the farmers with the rice plants. Moreover, my skills in art and craft also showed well during the trip. While painting an orphanage and a government school with Warli art, I collaborated with my classmates and developed my thinking and communication skills along with my social skills with my classmates to paint the projects that were drawn on the school. Moreover, I showcased my art and craft skills during the Warli practice session and understood how Warli art can be made. Lastly, the most challenging part for me was physical activities, which included nature trails, then exercising and the Lippan art which was really a new experience for me. I developed my resilience skills and I developed my social and communication skills to get through all these activities and experience them in the rural area.

LO4 show perseverance and commitment in a CAS experience.

In this learning outcome, I committed to the trip as much as I could. Since the trip was a week long, I knew that I had to get adjusted with the lifestyle here and be one with the nature. I showed my perseverance and commitment in the CAS experience by immersing myself in all the activities and participating to my very best. In every activity, I participated and I did very well in all the activities, even if I didn’t know how to do them. I learned slowly and then I mastered them. For example, I was reluctant to participate in the lippan art at first, but slowly, one by one, I immersed myself into the art and learned how to develop my skills in that art form. Additionally, during the farming activity, it was really tough for me to carry the rice plants throughout the fields as there were many rocks and due to the size of the plants, I could not see where I was stepping and there were mostly rocks and mud on the field, which made it really hard for me to travel across it. However, within an hour, I was able to do it better than I could with the help of my teachers and friends who guided me where I should step and where I should not. That way, I did my best to complete all the fields and complete all the rice activities. Additionally, with the commitment in my CASS experience, I really immersed myself in the activity where we helped the orphanage and the government school with many kind of activities, dances, and art forms as well, and we donated some utensils to them also. In that, I taught the kids how to dance and they taught me how to dance their traditional dance, which was really fun to do with my friends and the little kids who really enjoyed the day as of such. They participated in dance, they participated in art activities and so much more.



In conclusion, this rural immersion was really a enlightening experience for me as well as my friends. With some classes that we went to the Amba Pani area, we learned a lot about preserving mother nature and how rural areas experience more problems than the city life. Even though they live naturally and they work on just village business such as selling milk or having many farm animals in their house, there are many problems that are faced by the rural immersion by the rural areas and the people over there. Hence, we also immersed ourselves in a group project where we came up with ideas that could have solved many common rural area problems that we had seen which occurred during our trip. For example, I worked upon creating an affordable and quality milk testing kit for the farmers to actually test if their cows milk is up to the mark and contains uh contains no chemicals or urea or pathogenic bacteria that can be desired from the cow being sick or being stationed in unhygienic stations. This idea was appreciated by my teachers as it highlighted that even though the farmers take their milk to a center for testing, it often costs them very much and sometimes their milk is wasted and is brought back home. To stop that from happening, farmers can initially test their milk for any kind of pathogenic bacteria or urea that can be can be infected by the cow, and they can use that milk for other purposes such as making a house cleaning soap or making something that is fermented which cancels out all the pathogenic bacteria from the milk. Overall, this trip was really a new experience for me as I got to see rural life and mother nature in its rawest form. There were no cities in that area and no pollution, which really made it made it easy for me to see what nature is truly like and immerse myself into rural experiences. This trip was a successful experience for me and my friends to learn about the rural areas and more aspects which are unknown to city life today.