Operation Smile Campaign – IBDP CAS Project

In order to pass the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) students must fulfil the requirements of the non-academic component known as CAS (Creativity, Activity and Service). Here we talk to Zhen Yi Chew about his chosen IB CAS Project: Operation Smile.

For our IB CAS project, my group chose to help Operation Smile and while working alongside a second group, we planned and prepared for a Campaign day.

On the 21st of November 2017, Operation Smile group 1 and 2 were hosting activities and selling a wide array of products. Students and teachers took part in a range of activities to make the day a memorable one which helped contribute towards raising awareness for the charity’s cause.

We have learnt a lot during our experience helping Operation Smile, an organization I have been working with for a year. At the beginning we set ourselves two main goals:

1. To raise enough money for one surgery, as we believe that small steps from the beginning will eventually make up for a significant difference in the long term
2. Raising awareness and educating students at BIS HCMC on the work of Operation Smile, hoping they can one day get involved in taking these small steps with us that will count.

During the preparation for the event, we tried to find many ways to focus on raising awareness throughout the school and how we can help motivate students to learn during the event day. We did this by posting patient profiles to help convey the students on the difficulties the patients had to bear before the surgery, these were displayed on the board allowing students to read about certain individuals that had their lives changed by Operation Smile. We also had a mini art competition where students were asked, before or during the day, to create a piece of art on the theme of ‘giving smiles’. We received some great artworks that were displayed on the event day.

From sharing pictures taken from our photo booth to leaving generous donations, students got involved with a wide range of activities that we hosted. One of the activities included the ‘guess the smile’ kahoot for all form groups to play which seemed to be very popular among younger students. This helped to kickstart the day with Operation Smile in mind. In addition to the kahoot we setup a photo booth where students could dress themselves with props and take a photograph to share with friends and family using our Instagram border in collaboration with group 1. We also focused on encouraging donations which helped us to achieve a total of 3.5 million VND.

We were able to achieve our goals and having reflected upon the planning, preparation and the execution, as part of the requirement of the CAS project, I know that our group has done our very best in having to collaborate with each other to make the 21st of November possible.

At the end of the day, our aims were to educate and raise awareness about Operation Smile and encourage students to get involved in helping change lives, one smile at a time.

IB CAS Projects

The aim of the CAS part of the IB Diploma Programme is to extend students’ talents and social commitment through Community Projects, alongside their academic studies. The projects must last for at least one month and they are required to show initiative, demonstrate perseverance and develop skills such as collaboration, problem solving and decision making.

Zhen Yi Chew, Operation Smile Group 2

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