SSS w/ Cans for Hope Ending Reflection

The Shimmer Sparkle Shine Project wanted to combine efforts with Cans for Hope to create events and fundraising  Through the process I wanted to focus on Working Collaboratively With Others and Engaging an Issue of Global Importance. 

One thing Barb (director of Cans for Hope) stressed was that to have a strong community all groups and organization need to work together. We may have different missions but some part of our message overlaps together, but overall we have one goal; improve our community. Strong alliances contribute to this, so we must work together. By working with Barb , we decided to organize a can drive and speggatti dinner. The spegetti dinner is in late June and the can drive is in April. With the can drive we want to use Cans for Hope's resources and our mission to donate to the Yellow Ribbon Project. The Yellow Ribbon Project is an organization that helps with suicide prevention because the organization was started from a victim's parents. Our 3 message go together, only engaging in an issue of global importance. Cans for Hope's wants to decrease the number of sex traffickers and help rehabilitate victims of sex trafficking. The Shimmer Sparkle Shine Project wants to raise the sense of self worth among girls. Victims of sex trafficking are induced with a low sense of worth, and a low sense of worth can lead to dramatic decisions such as committing suicide (incorporating the Yellow Ribbon Project's mission). This shows how we have different missions but we can still work together to help the overall issue of global importance to build a stronger community.

Our spegatti dinner in partnered with Cans for Hope will be a combined fundraiser for both of our organizations. The theme will be independence, and since the dinner will take place around the 4rth of July the theme couldn't be more perfect.  The focus won't only be on independence of our country, but independence from others control over our thoughts and choices. This provides lead-way for both organization's messages. Planning this together has already been an interesting process as we have to make sure no organization oversteps the other. We also have different connections and different networks that we can and are bringing forth to create the most successful fundraiser we can.

SSS Class Ending Reflection

Trying to establish classes for the Shimmer Sparkle Shine Project raised itself to be a larger challenge than intended, only further enhancing the learning process for the chosen learning outcome of Consider the Ethical Implications of Actions Taken. We first tried scheduling our classes at a local home business, but as we planned and devolved the classes and schedules we got a feeling that the location wasn't the proper location. The ideas of the shop are ones that I don't personally have a problem with, but parents may be uncomfortable with having their daughters attend our classes there. I decided that to reach our audience we needed to choose a new location because it wouldn't cause possible interference with our message. This was such a hard choice because we had to really think about the overall focus of ethics, and the generous offer we had received and the ethics of having parents comfortable with us to help their daughters.

We later made an agreement with the Boys and Girls club and we went into their Smart Girls group located in Commerce City. This area is a lower economic region and it provided us with girls who have difficult home circumstances. The audience was great for our message, and they really benefited from it! They opened up to us about how their race and backgrounds contribute to the problems they have faced that helped them become who they are today. It was a really great enviroment to really have our message connect to their individual needs. It honestly also gave great insight to how to have them take our message home with them, but still respect their culture. Ethics became a huge part of it as we helped them take our message with their own cultural backgrounds.

In the end we realized that an hour to spread our message and do a class was not enough time. We felt rushed, and we had so much more we wanted to share with them. We decided that if we do classes again we want to make it a series of classes so we can cover everything.

Spanish Tutoring Update

While tutoring an underclassmen in Spanish, I wanted to undertake new challenges and develop new skills. Spanish is my hardest subject in school, as I struggle formulating thoughts to speak while incorporating all the skills and grammatical skills I have learned. Some skills I learned in the begging of my journey causing me in needing to be refreshed. Tutoring in Spanish so far has helped me to re-familiarize myself with these skills. Preparing lessons helps to really evaluate the skill in a broader sense and real world application. It not only makes me a thinker, but an effective communicator in my foreign language.
Undertaking the challenge of tutoring Spanish also combines with learning new skills. It is really helping me to establish a clear understanding in the basics is Spanish, which was something I have been lacking.
Tutoring as a whole is going well as the other student is actually benefiting from it. His test scores on retakes have improved, on instance from a D to an A. Finding different ways for him to practice what he is learning in class is helping him benefiting him by being at the right pace with the rest of the class and not falling behind with a need to catch up. Going over his test mistakes also seems to aid in the effectiveness of the tutoring.
Ciara

SSS w/ Cans for Hope (Service)

Myself and the director of Cans for Hope have met to discuss joining together to do various events from awareness to fundraising. They focus on rehabilitating victims of sex trafficking, SSS works to help establish self worth in others. They go hand in hand, so we are plan to meet again to come up with exact events and plans. Through combining with Cans for Hope I want to accomplish two learning outcomes;

1. Working Collaboratively With Others
2. Engaging an Issue of Global Importance

Putting two organizations together should raise some challenges as we try to promote the idea of each of your non-profit, and making sure we incorporate each others ideas and input.We will be engaging in an issue of global importance by addressing the problem of women being used as tools for manipulation amongst countries along with the issue of females having a hard time establishing and identifying self worth.
More to come!
Ciara

SSS Classes (Service and Creative)

This Thursday will be Shimmer Sparkle Shine Project's first class. We will be visiting the Boys and Girls Club in Commerce City, and other locations in the future. We will have one hour to teach that group of girls the basics of SSS and self worth. This shall prove to be a challenge, because we are used to hosting 6 hour events that have to be condensed to one.
With these classes I will aim to;

• Consider the Ethical Implications of Actions Taken

I really want to see the social impact our program has on these girls, so I want to check back with the various Boys and Girls Club locations to see if our program is working.
In these classes we will follow this basic schedule; 

10 min; intros
15 -20min: power point/discussion on beautiful things
20 - 25min; various activities
5 min; closing remarks

I hope it all goes well!
Ciara

Spanish Tutoring (Service)

Starting tomorrow I will be tutoring a 10th grade Spanish student every Monday after school. With this activity I plan to attack two learning outcomes;

1. Undertaking New Challenges
2. Developing New Skills 

Spanish class has always been the class I have struggled in, but mostly when it comes to the oral component of speaking and holding a conversation in Spanish. One of my strong points has always been learning the rules to properly put a verb in its correct form of a specific tense. This is the primary focus of learning in MYP Spanish II. 

I plan to also incorporate a new skill into this by learning different and creative ways to learn Spanish  which can be categorized under creativity. Hopefully by helping another THS IB student I can help him increase his Spanish skills while not making it something that would put one to sleep.

Funds!

The legal process for SSS is going slower then I would like, but great news is the fact that I have the funds raised that I needed to go through the legal process to file the paperwork. How did I accomplish this? Through the Canvas and Coctails night. Each person who payed to go ($40) got to learn to paint the picture of the night and $10 dollars of each attendee went to SSS. I was a little disappointed that no teachers from school came to support me but there was a whole new crowd of people I could inform about SSS. 

All in all we $750!!! More than what we needed! So now I have the extra money to buy supplies for upcoming classes and events! That sounds so great! 

We also have another fundraiser this Sunday, the old fashion way; by doing a car wash! It is free with donations highly needed. I got the idea from my taekwondo, so I am happy to have all kinds of people involved to help the whole car wash in motion and make some more donation money!