IB CAS Blog: 2012

Service: Tutoring

Tutoring is another area that I tried to contribute in order to make a service. I tutored 5th grader girl from my school and two 6th graders and one 7th grader from public school in the subject of English and Mathematics.

I tried to help to their homeworks and we read books and discuss about them. I explained the questions that they are facing problems.

We work on vocabulary and grammer in English most specifically. We also did reviews for their quizzes and exams.

For mathematics, we solved lots of different question types to make them understand better.

At the end I was happy because I saw that I can help other people who needs supporters. They got better grades from their exams and they start to understand what they did at class which was the unequalled reward of my volunteer work.

Service: Six Dots Foundation Project (Altı Nokta Körler Vakfı)

Awareness and being responsible is important .Individuals and societies try to make a difference because of the problems that they are facing in their communities. . We try to contribute our community to make a difference because we are aware of our community’s and world’s problems.

Change can come in countless forms. Near to my school there is rehabilitation center for blind people. For 6 months every week afterschool me and two of my friends went to “Six Dots Foundation”, rehabilitation center for blinds. It is for the education, rehabilitation, employment and increasing the efficiency of blind people at work, and to create a public awareness regarding the problems of blind people.

My goal was help these people to find employment and train them for their employment, increase their efficiency, and make them socialize.

I tried to help disabled people at there. Because they are blind it is hard to teach them. Also, they are older than us this makes it more difficult to teach them something. Me and my friends work really hard to teach. They have really limited working opportunities. They can work easily at a job which seeing is not required. We helped the students in "Phone Station Operator Training". One of the occupations that the students can choose to do is to be a phone station operator. They need to memorize the numbers for certain departments and people in the school and we teach them how to use the phone station's phone.

One of the difficulties I encountered was because they are blind I should be very patient and I have 20 students and an hour once a week that they should all learn how to use phone.

It helped me to learn the importance of communication and discover and enhance some of my leadership skills. Besides developing my interpersonal skills it was an experience of working as a team member.

I learned to help people and created strong friendships, and also I had the chance to think for others, and make a choice and decide for them.

Ali, Me and Berke in front of Six Dots Foundation (Altı Nokta Körler Vakfı)

Action: Swimming

Since leadership is the ability to motivate a group of people toward a common goal, the team work experience that I gained is valuable for me to demonstrate a leadership example.

I am a licenced swimmer at Enka Schools and Enka Sport Club since I was in first grade. With swimming I developed my self discipline, and become determined person. I learned to not give up until the end.

12 years in high school as swimmer has given me the hands on experience of what it is like competing with other goal-oriented individuals.

The experience of being with others to represent our team in national competitions has taught me to appreciate the true value of teamwork. It also taught me the value of hardworking that I put into training while preparing, the importance of self discipline and organizational skills, strategic thinking, adaptability to changing conditions and not give up to overcome obstacles.

Me swimming at Turkey Championship

Turkey Championship

İstanbul Championship at Enka Schools

Service: WebEX Conference 21st Century Challenges and Opportunities: The Global Economy as the Part of the Oxford-Cushing Discussion Series Hosted By Cushing Institute for 21st Century Leadership

I attend to this WebEx conference and I learned how to use my knowledge of economic concepts and theories in real life. I applied my knowledge to real life problems. I had the opportunity to listen important economists and their ideas about world economy and globalization. I also had the chance to raise some questions to the imporant economists and learn their ideas. With this conference, I helped International Chain of Awareness club about globalization and economic concepts and I also applied what I learn to my economics classes.

Creativity: French Cooking Club

I asked to create French Cooking Club to our school administration. It was the first time that a student offered and created a club in our school.

I offered this club because I realized that we as students didn’t have any chance to practice our French other than our French classes. So ı offered to open a French Cooking Club in our school. My school administration accepted the idea.

Since September we are cooking and collecting our recipes to create a cooking book. We plan to sell these books after this school year and donate the money that collect, which was my plan for service part of this club.

Also, my supervisor and me planned a gastronomy trip to Paris at summer, while I was planning yearly plan for club. We went to Paris this December and we went to Institut Vatel, which is an international business school for hotel and tourism management. We went to schools restaurant for dinner. Now we are working on globalization and food culture. So it is basically, a multi-purposed club, which involves creativity, service and some knowledge of French.

Aslı and Me at Institut Vatel, Paris, Paris

Me cooking at Atelier des Chefs, Paris

Me, Aslı and Berkehan cooking at Atelier des Chefs, Paris

Melis and Me cooking at Atelier des Chefs, Paris

Me cooking at Enka Schools

Service: Güler Sabancı Conference

Güler Sabancı is currently the chairperson of the family-controlled Sabancı Holding, the second-biggest industrial and financial conglomerate of Turkey.

In 2004, The Wall Street Journal selected her as one of the "30 most powerfull women in Europe". In 2007, she was selected to be one of the World's 100 Most Powerful Women by the Forbes magazine. In 2009, the Financial Times listed Güler Sabancı 5th among the "Top 50 Women" in World Business.

Me and my friend Aslı worked as moderators of conference and we raised questions about Gender Inequality in Turkey, Private Education, World Recession, European Union and Turkey and Globalization.

With this conference I learned the importance of Turkish economy in world economy and Turkey's position in world arena. With this conference I had the chance to meet one of the most influencing chairperson in Turkey, Güler Sabancı.

Güniz, Güler Sabancı, Aslı and Me

Me, Aslı and Güler Sabancı and audience

Güler Sabancı, Aslı, Me and audience

Güler Sabancı, Aslı and Me

Auditorium

Güler Sabancı, Aslı and Me

Service: Conference at Brussels

I went to Brussels to visit NATO and European Union. With this visit I learned the organization and procedure of European Union and NATO. We get permissions from government to visit NATO. We also attend to a reception in Turkish consular. It was a unique experience because normally, it is not possible to visit NATO without permisson.

Aslı and Me at the Enterence of European Union, Brussels

European Union

Reception at Turkish Consular

Service and Creativity: International Mosaic Project and CAS & TOK Conference in Gaziantep

I went to a International Mosaic Conference in Gaziantep for International Baccalaureate students. It was a 4 day program that we did projects and presentations about Theory of Knowledge, our CAS activities and mosaic projects.

In this project I met lots of different IB students around the world and we discussed about our CAS acitivities and TOK presentations.

We as a group of Enka students present our CAS activities in Enka and we attend to other schools presentations.

We also participated in Mosaic Workshop. Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials.We had the chance to visit another city called Şanlıurfa and, did a boat trip in Halfeti.