Activity Description:
This project will consist in preparing disease awareness days at our school. Miren and I, inspired by the Pink day that took place at school, where everyone came to school dressed in pink to support cancer breast, decided to organize two events to promote conciousness. The first event will be the Cancer Awareness Day and will take place in World Cancer Day. We will prepare a bakesale and prepare and sell cancer ribbons to raise money and give it to the cancer research department from the hospital “Cruces”. On our second event, we will focus on Autism awareness. We will prepare a presentation and an activity for people to participate in.
Predicted length of activity:
1 month for each event
Personal goals:
I feel the school is very united, and activities in which we help people make us even more united. We already had breast cancer awareness day, and with our world cancer awareness day I want expand the possibilities for helping to research cure for other cancers. My goal is to make people concious of the cancer diseases and encourage people to help to the cause by raising a large amount of money. For the second event my goal is simply for people to understand what autism really is, and be aware they will meet people with autism throughout their lives and how they should act around them.
Learning Outomes:
1. Increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth. - increase awarness of public speacking skills and organization skills.
2. Undertaken new challenges – I have never organized a campaign to raise money to donate to a charity, so it will be a challenge getting everything prepared in time and making the ribbons. For the second event, I will take a new challenge by preparing activities for lower school children.
3. Planned and initiated activities – Miren and I came up with the idea, and will organize everything and make our own ribbons.
4. Worked collaboratively with others – Miren and I will work collaboritavely with each other, with the people that want to help, and with the teachers to make both events a success.
5. Showing perseverance and commitment - I will try my best to make this project be a success, even if that means staying extra hours at school and being on a Saturday afternoon working in the project.
6. Engaged with issues of global importance – We will help in the research to finding a cure for cancer and spread awareness.
7. Consider the ethical implications of my actions - By organizing this project we will be contributing to the world and may help people.
8. Develop new skills - I will be develop new management skills as I have never organized such a big event.
Proposal
Reflections:
AWARENESS DAY
World Cancer Awareness Day
Before the activity:
Before planning anything, we went to talk to Mr. Gutteridge to ask for permission. When he told us he would be supporting us we started planning to make an amazing project. We wanted to plan a day where we would raise the largest amount of money we could and so we organized everything ahead of time (about January) to prepare the Cancer Awareness Day on the 4th of February: World Cancer Day. We decided that the best idea was to make a bakesule in which we were sure people would collaborate. However, for it to be different, and not just like another school trip bakesales, we decided to sell small cancer ribbon pins which we created ourselves. We went to Bilbao to buy 25 metres of lace of different colors, because as it was world cancer day, we wanted to have ribbons of different types of cancer: we had black (melanoma), pink (breast cancer), white (lung cancer), organce (leukemia), green (liver cancer), blue (colon cancer), and lavender (all cancers)
We met at my place three afternoons to make around 250 ribbons (not to be scarce on ribbons on the actual day). It was such a mess creating the pins, I ended up with glue everywhere!
Then, we bought coloured posters to write in them announcing everyone at school about our event, and hang them in strategic places. This posters included the date of the event, the time, what we were going to sell, and encouraged people to donate. Not only that, but we sent emails to the whole school informing them about our event. Besides that, we published and article in the newsletter in english and spanish, and created another one to send as an special edition the day before the event.
During the activity:
So, the day of the event went insane. We had organized the goods to last both first lower school and upper school recesses. With the help of Isabel and Naroa, we brought down tables to the lower school recess and organized the food. We hadn't finished taking out all of the food, and the kids were already rushing to the table. We sold out everything we had and sold out more than half of the ribbons in 20 minutes! It was insane. We just had some small amount of food we had left for upper school!
When we counted the money afterwards I was soooo happy! We had made almost 700€ in just one day and everyone in the school was wearing 1 or more ribbons we had made, which made our school really united.
After the activity:
I have realised how united our school is and how much they collaborate in activities such as the one we did. It left me with the feeling of wanting to do another one immediately. However, we decided that was not a good idea, as people would feel overwhelmed and would not want to participate as much. However, I can say this day was a success and that I have completed my goals, as I managed to make every individual concious of the cancer diseases and raised a large amount of money. This activity served as a way to increase my organizaitonal skills, as, even though we had a shortcut of food, we managed to solve it. This activity served as a way to be concious of the ethical implications of my actions as it could help someone in the world be cured from cancer. I did not give up once, and managed to make all of the ribbons without getting desperate. Not only that, but I worked really well with Miren, and with the rest of the school, who helped make out event a success!!
The next event we do, will not require money from the parents, as that would be asking for too much. Instead, we have decided it is much better to teach children about autism, and how they should respect people with autism. We will make the presentation on the 15th of April and will make a game for the lower school kids.
Finally, we went to speak to the 11th graders about our event, and asked them if they wanted to participate by bringing goods to the bakesale. We got some hands up, and so when I went home I created a questionnaire to see who would be interested and the goods they would want to bring. I then opened a spreadsheed and wrote what each person would be bringing. I myself would be making a brownie that would be sold out the next day immediately, just like the rest of the goods.