I think that all of us can take action towards problems around us. I don’t believe that a final community project is just a requirement for GCY fellows, but an important skill for the leaders of tomorrow. Whenever you are ( even in quarantine) if something annoys you, then take action for it!
But what is a “Final community project”?
Any project that you can create, from the simplest one to a start-up ( if you are planning big) which tries to give a unique solution for a current problem which your society is facing. Society can be your neighboorhood, your city, your country or even the globe.
Some tips and tricks for every project you want to create:
1. Take a closer look inside you, your thoughts, your ideas and your feelings. All of us are members of a society called a city, country, globe.
2. Though your own self-reflection, identify a problem around you, a problem in the local community which you are facing as a citizen or resident.
3. Break your big problems into smaller parts or find a specific aspect of it that you want to focus
4. Brainstorm, which means thing different possible ways to take action and to give your own voice. Is nice to think big, but small, easy actions are much better than big ideas that need 2-3 years for their implementation.
5. Do your research about this issue, current solution and actions that are being taken towards it.
6. Break your action into steps and create a timeline, this will help you stay in track of your own project and complete it.
7. Check your stakeholders. To complete your goals, which people are going to help you and how? Do you have a target group? Do you need permissions for use of a certain space? etc.
8. Do it! Follow your timeline, contact the needed people and go-ahead
9. Reflect and give feedback to yourself about it, when you finish your project. This step is the most important, as you can learn from your action, see what worked out, what didn’t, how can you change in the future or things to take in consideration the next time you are planning to make a project or to continue the same one.
I can hear you asking about my “Final community project”. Thanks for asking about it and I am very happy to share with you mine.
As a high school student, I felt that there wasn’t enough information about what exactly a gap year is from the people that already took one. I was sicking to find about other people experiences and I couldn’t find something and I felt lost, I didn’t know if taking a gap year was the best choice for me and how this will help me furthermore in my future desition, carrier etc. I shared the same thoughts and experience with Natalie( my future partner, teamwork is much better than doing everything alone) and decided to do something about it
Our action towards this issue:
We decided to create short videos taking interview of a diverse sample of gap year takers about their experience during their gap year and share those videos online for everyone that is looking to learn more about it.
Before we even started the project, we created a questionnaire to see if other gap year takers felt the same way and what were their thoughts about. After the questionnaire, we created a detailed timeline and we stick to it until the end. This project was the best fit for us because of our strengths. Natalie loves writing and i love camera; taking footage and videos.
And we did it!
if you would like to give a look to your final community project or learn more about gap year experiences then you can take a look here: https://bit.ly/3euWTf0