Tatjana Marjanovic

Personal CAS blog

[tatjanamarjanovicm]

Activity name: Volunteering at a gallery

Date(s) of Activity: 2019-2020

Length of Activity (days/weeks): every Saturday from October 2019 to May 2020

Approximate number of hours: 6 hours

Activity type: creativity and service

Activity description:

I started volunteering at UDAS gallery, which is an organization of amputees, which also organized art school for children with and without disabilities. The school portion lasted 4 hours, as I worked with 4 groups of children from 4-19 hears old, and then I would paint or draw for my own sake for 2 more hours after the kids went home. I had an opportunity to work alongside 2 amazing art teachers and one social worker who were an amazing team for cooperatin ad work dynamic. I had a lot to learn from all of them, both about drawing and working with kids. I have a feeling that it has changed me as a person, that I further developed my empathy. Something new I had learned is patience, since many of those children were less than 10 years old, and it was my duty to approach each and every one of them separately. I worked with two kids who had autism, and one who had Down’s syndrome. The were AMAZING. they were always positive and interacted well with other kids. Learning new art skills is not always the main reason those kids attended art classes. The biggest reason is that their parents wanted them to socialize in a healthy environment. I learned a lot from the kids too. A lot about uniqueness of each and every one of them. It was a truly wonderful and rewarding experience that I would gladly repeat. 

Learning outcomes: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process. Identify your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth.

p.S. The parents signed a consent form when they sign up their kid to UDAS art school, which states that classes may me photographed and posted of social media to promote UDAS organization, so I am authorized to post these pictures. 

[tatjanamarjanovicm]

Activity name: Participating in celebration of European Day of Languages

Date(s) of Activity: 2019-2020

Lenght of Activity (days/weeks): every day

Approximate number of hours: 1-4 hours

Activity type: action

Activity description: Walking for me is the main way of commuting since I have no driver’s licence, and my town of Banja Luka is not that big, so everything is accessible even when on foot. I often go out with my sister to walk because jogging is not something I am able to endure, after an injury a couple of years back, so walking keeps me active. I installed an app, called G step, on my phone so I could keep record of my activity. After a while an app “Pruži korak” became popular. The idea is that for every 100 steps, the sponsors of the app would pay 10 RSD for every 1000m that every user of the app passed, and donate that money to a humanitarian cause.

This helped me keep in shape, stay healthy, and feel good about contributing to a good cause.

Learning outcome: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.

This is an activity that has helped me contribute to reducing of global warming, and green house gases, by walking instead of driving or riding a bus. It has also helped me improve my personal health at no cost. It made me feel better about myself and motivated me to participate in humanitarian work. 

p.S. The numbers show in a video are numbers of steps taken over past several months.

[tatjanamarjanovicm]

Celebration of the Week of the child

CAS activity title: Celebration of the Week of the child

 Type of activity: creativity, service

 Duration: 5 hours

 Learning outcomes: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.

 Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.

 Activity description:

 Days before the Week of the child we sat with our psychology professor and discussed activities we could organize in order to celebrate this week. We decided to ask children of primary school to draw something linked to children rights. The day we asked them to draw something we also took time to talk about human rights with them. Next week we came to their school again to collect the drawings.

CAS activity title: Celebration of the Week of the child

 Type of activity: creativity, service

 Duration: 5 hours

 Learning outcomes: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.

 Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.

 Activity description:

 Days before the Week of the child we sat with our psychology professor and discussed activities we could organize in order to celebrate this week. We decided to ask children of primary school to draw something linked to children rights. The day we asked them to draw something we also took time to talk about human rights with them. Next week we came to their school again to collect the drawings.

 These drawings were exhibited in the school hall and the children were invited to see them.

This experience has taught me more about team work and event organisation. This has been the longest event in which organisation i have participated yet. I am happy about having this experience and it makes me want to work with children in the future.

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[tatjanamarjanovicm]

CAS reflection- European Day of Languages

Activity name: Participating in celebration of European Day of Languages

Date(s) of Activity: 26.9.2018.

Lenght of Activity (days/weeks): 1 day

Approximate number of hours: 3.5 hours

Activity type:creativity and action

Activity description:

On 26th of September is The European Day of Languages. I participated in celebrating this day by being a part of a short event that took place in my high school ‘Gimnazija Banja Luka’. 

Prior to the event our teacher assigned the tasks we were going  to undertake. Assignment of tasks was mostly voluntarily. Our German teacher came up with several things that we could do and people from our group chose the tasks from those that were suggested. My task was to make a poster. 

I started with drawing a portrait of Albert Einstein using a pencil. I placed the drawing in the center of my poster.

I placed the rest of motives that are assosiated with Germany across the poster. Combined with the drawing, the making of poster took 2,5 hours.

Next was the presentation of our group in the school hall. We used a table as our stand. 

During a 1 hour period after a short program we presented about Germany, German language and characteritics of this country.

Reflection:

 I  think that our group, of German-learning students, did a great job  informing students of ‘Gimnazija’ about Germany. We demonstrated our skills and recognized the benefitc oof working collaboratively. I am proud of the work we had done in a short period of time. Events like this are not only breaking the sterotype about strict environment, but are also bringing students to work together and inform eachother about different countries. I met a lot of people who I didn’t even know went to my school and learned a lot about countries such as Russia, France, Great Britain, China and so on. I hope to travell to some of the countries that were presented during this event and learn about their culture first hand.