Every Afternoon Matters

By participating and constructing my Social Action Plan project I have become stronger in my conviction’s that education is essential in our society to make sure it is strong and functional for generations to come. The impact on myself by undertaking this project would be: my awareness of how many children are in need of supervision, both in the nation and in the community I live within, understanding the statistics and truths about after school programs, and realizing that it is a key puzzle piece in our youth’s educational background. I hope that my impact on others through this project would be to spread awareness of our need and demand for afterschool programs, bring information to why we need these programs in our society, and hopefully the want and desire to have these programs in all schools across the nation so every child can have the same opportunities as the next, creating an equal opportunity for future generations.

Through this semester and process of making a social action plan I have learned that community activism: getting your community involved with something you are passionate for and feel needs to be changes, is a tough undertaking. It is a slow and deliberate process, where most of the time you will not see immediate results, but gradual results over years to come. I also learned that even if you do not get positive followings at the beginning of your project you just need to stick with it and keep pursuing change, for that’s the only way others can see that the cause matters.

I was faced with many obstacles throughout the course of this project. One of those obstacles was finding enough research on our community, Waco, and trying to get into contact with our school district. I also found making a website and technology extremely tough to manipulate so that was a huge obstacle for me to overcome. Another obstacle I came into contact with was interviewing teachers. Their schedules never truly matched up with mine to be able to conduct an in person interview, so all of the interviews I had to do over phone or through email. I also ran into a predicament when I found out that the director of the Education LLC was on maternity leave and couldn’t be in contact with her to continue our discussion on the course implementation into the education LLC curriculum and interview her on what they already have in place to help with the community and their education system.

I do not have a new point of view on my issue, instead my initial point of view was just enhanced by the project, making myself more aware and passionate to create a change in our world for education and our youth.

I think I would have approached this project on a national scale, not just local. I know to create change you need to think small first and then grow your cause, but I feel like for the purpose of this project we could’ve had the choice of thinking of a local issue, either in Waco or maybe our own hometown, or a national or global issue. I also would’ve given the option of using technology or another source of presentation for the end result, coming from someone who is not technologically savvy this option would have saved myself a lot of time and stress.

Advice I have for future LEAD students on this project is: do not wait until the last minute to do your research and contact individuals you’d like to interview with – schedules are hard to match up, sometimes even impossible. I would tell them that right after they figure out what they are doing their projects on to start planning who they want to interview, how they will get in contact with those people, and all the questions they will be asking them. I would also tell them that if they are not totally and 100% committed to their issue and the work they need to put into it then this project will be daunting and a burden by the end of the semester.

I hope to stay focused on this project in the future by getting involved with my local community afterschool programs, volunteering, and trying to pinpoint areas that need improvement. With this I hope to stay connected with what is going on within the community, and the current issues that arise in our community’s education system. While participating and volunteering with these programs I can enhance my own project by taking what I learn and experience in those programs and implementing them into my own.

Thorough this project I have grown as a leader by persevering through the obstacles I came into contact with and finding different solutions to overcome those obstacles gracefully. Another aspect of this project that has let me grow as a leader was battling aversion towards my issue: from the thought of afterschool programing costing to much, to not having qualified individuals structuring the programs, or just the general dislike of the idea. My leadership has also grown from trying to get others to listen to my cause: hearing me out and influencing them in a way that made them passionate as well about our youth’s future and their education. I have always known that making an impact and implementing change will always be a work in progress, that you will probably never truly see the difference you make in your life time. During my time with this project my skills as a leader to come to terms with this realization has only been enhanced, becoming fully aware, and okay with the fact that I will not see my difference being made, but I know there is a difference being made even if I can’t actually see it now. What also comes with being a leader is being passionate about something, and wanting other to be passionate as well for your cause, so to finally have a cause that I can fully back up and inform others on, trying to enlighten them and open their eyes to the issue has let me grown into the leader I am now.