reflection on NACLI

To be frank, i always did CIP for the sake of feeling good about myself. other than that, i didnt learn anything else. so what really got me excited about service learning was how much emphasis was placed on the project being a win-win, learning and community service experience for us. i was rather surprised when asked to list down what our group hoped to learn form the project (like economics, collaborating wth organisations ect). it dawned on me that what i benefited from service learning was equally important as to what i benefited others.

another important thing i learnt was that our proposed project should be what the organisation needs and not what i wanted them to have. being rather ambitious, i had grand ideas on making tv comercials (like oneeath.org) and collecting every single piece of worksheet students in singapore had at the end of the year to be recycled. after some time of desperately clinging on to my grand ideas, i finally realised that perhaps my ideas werent that realistic afterall and wouldnt be what SEC needed. firstly, we simply didnt have the resources and the SEC didnt need that much publicity. also, recycling needed resources like water and dye which wouldnt be that cost effective.

it was really interesting to hear from the more experienced facilitators about our initial proposed project. for example, we had an idea to give rebates to customers who didnt use any plastic bags in supermarkets. the facilitator improved our idea by suggesting that perhaps giving monetary incentives wouldnt be that much of a reward. alternatively, we could use the money saved from wasting plastic bags to donate to a charitable organisation. rather than spending 1 or 2 cents less, most people would prefer donating for a good cause no? involving a 3rd party (charitable organisation) was also an example of thinking out of the box, showing how flexible the project could be. this reminded me of how ntuc donated a few cents to an organisation for every discounted item they sold and raise a few million dollars in the end. i remember feeling extremely proud for ntuc when i read the news. i also thought that perhaps all major supermarkets could follow ntuc's lead and share their wealth.

after our first meeting with mentor guili, i learnt more about how to present oneself when meeting a representative from an organisation. she told us to share with the SEC what ideas we had in mind (so as to impress upon them how passionate we were about the project and how far we were willing to go) first before asking them a prepared list of questions. i hope to gain more experience in handling projects dealing with big organisations in future.