Feeder

On the Christmas Eve I decided to do something good for those people that are alone and the most needy today. I wanted to share this great Christmas atmosphere with homeless people. I made a borsch to five flasks, bought plastic cups and give it to those poor people. There were a lot of them near eg. train station sitting in the outside. The weather was quite good today so they didn't feel as much cold as last year when the Christmas Eve was ice-cold. Today everyone should be kind for each other. Our country is general a Catholic country and as the Bible said it is vital to treat each other in a good way. I don't think that this commandment is fulfilled. In my opinion everyone care only about themselves and can't see the suffering around them. Also it is very interesting why do people feel more pity for poor dogs or cats than for other human being? I can't answer this question.
I took my younger sister with me to help. She took the camera and we supposed to film everything. However we got some complications. We both felt like asking those people to film them is inappropriate. The were defenceless and lost sitting alone on the Christmas Eve. They could feel humiliated by this action.
But what was surprising for me is that mainly homeless people didn't want my help. When I asked them if they want some borsch firstly they would say no. I had to convince them that I did this specially for them, that it is for free and that I don't want to harm them. But when they finally see that this is something good for them they acted very polite. They were asking me if I'm from some organisation and why am I doing this. Through this few hours I spent on this action I haven't seen any act of anger from homeless people but what was surprising other people were negative to me. I wanted to make something like a controlled trial and I was disappointed. I was trying to give a cup to some people waiting for a bus or train. Those people were answering me in an impolite way and no one wanted to take a cup from me.
I think that it is very sad that those who have nothing can share more positive emotions with you than other that theoretically should be happy people. I really pitied those homeless people. I know that they are sometimes on the street because they don't want to be sober. But is it exactly like this? Alcoholism is a sickness and is very hard to go through it. Sometimes it is impossible to do this when the person is alone and has no support. We shouldn't be prejudice and judge other people by their appearance because sometimes we can mistaken very badly.
What was the biggest shock for me through this whole action is the moment when I woke up the man sleeping sitting on the branch and offered him a cup and he smiled to me an said surprised: "and you wanted to do something like this?". I had time, enough money to buy those few things and full family waiting for me for the Christmas Eve supper. I wanted to do this because I had all I need on this day and I wanted to help as much as I can to make other people feel like they are a part of this world.

This is us right before going out for this action.

Learning Outcomes:

• Work collaboratively with others

• Show perseverance and commitment

• Engage with issues of global importance

• Consider ethical implications

• Develop new skills

Amnesty International

This Saturday I took part in Amnesty International action – marathon of writing letters. I spent three hours in the restaurant where it was held on writing letters to governments over the word in case of some people whose human rights where breached. There were for example a Chinese activist that was fighting against the corruption in her country and because of this she was imprisoned for more than six years. Different case was an American woman that was also sentenced for a few years in prison because she revealed some top-secret information connected with USA government on WikiLeaks. Mainly letters that we were writing were targeted to governing that imprisoned guiltless people that only were fighting for abide of the human rights. They were doing this to change the situation in their country, they wanted to make it better then it was. Unfortunately current government in those countries don’t like changes. I understand this that no one would like to part with the power that they got, but that is why all those little heroes have us – helping them when they sacrificed everything for better future life of next generations.

Everyone that was near this restaurant this day could come to us and write even only one letter. We had ready examples of each letter and only it was needed to rewrite it. 

I hope that this international action won’t go down the drain but brings freedom to those people that we were writing on behalf and we could make happy some divided families. Also I think that it is a great idea to make other people aware of such a problems, show them how to handle with it and convince them to such an actions.

Learning Outcomes:

• Work collaboratively with others

• Show perseverance and commitment

• Engage with issues of global importance

• Consider ethical implications

• Develop new skills

Math teacher

Lately I have started teaching my schoolmate. I’m preparing him to math tests, because he has backlog with the past material. I handle with the mathematics this year very well so I decided to help him.  We are meeting every weekend and do some exercises from the course book. It is quite challenging for me but also brings me a lot of benefits. Einstein said: “If you can’t explain something simply it means that you don’t understand it”. When I’m teaching this friend I’m learning too and improving my skills. I’m doing this as a volunteer because I think that friendly help in class is necessary and makes our work easier. If one knows something and handle with some topics better one would ease others’ life and help gratuitously.  

Learning Outcomes:

• Work collaboratively with others
• Show perseverance and commitment
• Engage with issues of global importance
• Consider ethical implications
• Develop new skills

St. Andrew’s Day

Here are the fortune cookies in demo version.

Our class organised an action for St. Andrew’s Day. We were selling small calendars as a symbol of a donation for a girl that needs money for the equipment to treatment and rehabilitation. As an addition we gave each donator a fortune cookie. I was only 2zł for a calendar but students from our school weren’t very willing to but one. Maybe those cookies convinced them a bit.

I baked about a hundred cookies and they were all sold. When I was creating the prophecies that were put into the cookies I was wondering if something small like this would change people’s day or even life. Those prophecies from my cookies were simple an only good, so it could make somebodies day, but I don’t think that could have an impact on one’s life. Why do people believe in such a things? Why they want to know how their life is going to pan out. Maybe when they feel like their future is uncertain they want to make sure that everything is going to be all right. But what if not? I wouldn’t like to know my future. I think that we should live the life we live and stop looking behind our backs. We should focus on the here and now and achieving our goals and stop considering what would happened if…



Learning Outcomes:

• Plan and initiate activities
• Work collaboratively with others
• Show perseverance and commitment
• Engage with issues of global importance
• Consider ethical implications

Dancing

Since October together with my friends we decided to go for hip-hop course. It was totally new thing for me because I have never been dancing before in my life. Firstly I had such a great fun. But then it was a huge challenge for me. I end my school lessons very late this day and usually I'm very tired so I had lack of motivation to continue this course. Also we started to learn breakdance, which was complete disaster. It is not my style and I wasn’t able to do everything properly. It makes me feel doubtful about continuing those lessons.

I decided to consider profits from this action because I didn’t want to quit so quickly. I get better condition and control on my body and I can spend some lovely time with my friends instead of wasting it on watching TV or some other unproductive activities. I decided to continue it.

When I saw those people dancing with me I realised that without passion and commitment any success won’t be achieved.

Learning Outcomes:

• Increased awareness of strengths and areas for growth 
• Undertaking new challenges 
• Showing perseverance and commitment 
• Consideration of ethical implications 
• Developing new skills 

The Cleaning

Okey, so we got in there!

We went to our future IB-room. We had the equipment, cleaning supplies, old clothes and masks put on and a lot of good intentions. We had spent there about 4h and I feel like nothing had changed. There was a teribble mess. We were sweeping the floor and cleaning the walls about bilion times. During the first Saturday we have been there we did nearly nothing, I mean it was hardly noticeable because of the dirt that had accumulated through a few years when it was unused. 

We went there three more times and I hope that we drive to the end. We depictured the walls, fixed broken chairs, organized all furnitured there and cleaned the room perfectly. I want to belive that we need only one more weekend to end up this thing, because it is so exhausting, but I am not sure. 

Learing Outcomes:

• Plan and initiate activities
• Work collaboratively with others
• Show perseverance and commitment
• Engage with issues of global importance
• Consider ethical implications
• Develop new skills

IB Fund-raiser

The first action in this school year!
Together with my class we would like to renovate one room in our school. This is kind of place where we will be able to spend our gaps between lessons. This room is quite important for all of us, because we have a lot of gaps through the whole week. We named this place IB-room. This is very important issue for us. We have a lot of work ahead of us because the room is in a poor conditions. What we need at the begining is money. It's quite unpleasant that everything revolves around the money, but without them we won't be able to do the renovation. We decided to the the cakes bazaar. A few people from our class baked some cakes (I was one of them) and we were selling them to other people in our school (including teachers). Through the whole day we had collected about 200zł. It wasn't an awful lot but enough for our current expenses. We had so many delicious cakes that we had to hold back to not eat them all. As I am the class treasurer  it was my job to buy the equipment for the renovation. So after the bazaar i went to the shop and bought cleaning equipment.

Learning outcomes:

• Plan and initiate activities
• Work collaboratively with others
• Show perseverance and commitment
• Engage with issues of global importance
• Consider ethical implications