November 10th – Julie CAS Journal Entry

At the beginning of the CAS course, I was struggling with what I was going to do and how I was going to do it. Jimena and I first started with Sibley’s idea of creating machines that would make eco-bricks. This sounded like an awesome idea to us, but as we did some research and started the process we realized the engineering aspect didn’t really intrigue either of us and the project was just going to be too difficult to get done in a year and a half. Also I think part of the reason we decided to not move forward with this project is that we were intimidated to work with the number of helpers we were going to need and how we were going to be in charge of a whole, very large project that would take a large amount of communication and time to make it a success.

Even though we decided to not move forward with that project, we practiced most of those fears throughout our experience being a part of Proyecto Vida Mujer. Although we were not considered the ones in charge for this project, we were treated as adults or as equals by the adults who also volunteered at the campaigns, which made it less intimidating to communicate and work with them. Over the course of my CAS experience, I have really improved my communication skills, not just talking to the other volunteers and Geneva, but also by communicating with the women and making them feel comfortable with their experience.

Creating and editing the yearbook with Jimena is a CAS experience I am very proud of. Jimena and I started off the yearbook with a pretty big team who were all willing to help and meet every week. However once we started online school due to the pandemic, we were no longer meeting with our team, and Jimena and I basically had to create the whole yearbook all alone. Not only was that difficult, but also since we weren’t at school we weren’t able to do a lot of things they had done in the past for the yearbook. For example fundraisers, marketing in morning meetings, distributing, etc. We had to find out ways to substitute all of these processes for new ones that would be online. In the end, the yearbook was a huge success and I’m very proud of it.

One thing that I wish I did differently throughout my CAS experience was reach out. Throughout working with the Proyecto Vida Mujer project, Jimena and I did do a lot of work to help out, however we would mostly just do tasks that were given or suggested to us by Geneva instead of reaching out more oftenly and asking her if there was anything we could do to help. This is something I wish I could go back and change throughout my CAS experience because we could’ve done more for the project and shown more interest.

Our plan to move forward is to start our yearbook meetings this week and get the new kids who have joined the club interested and teach them about the process. I also would like to reach out to Geneva and see what is happening with the project now that the October campaigns are over.