Way to go!

Wow!!! Challenging, amazing, enlightening, successful, awesome and thought provoking are just a few words that I can think of to describe the first term of CPF's After School Program at the St. Clements Vedic Primary School.

After months of preparation, and admittedly sometimes stress, we were off to a great start. Nowhere in my mind did I think that fifty students would have enrolled when we first started the program. By the end of the term we were up to sixty one children, with others expressing interesting. Whew!!!

For this blog, I decided that I would share some of the key things that I learnt over the past couple of months. I hope that it would encourage someone else on their journey.

One major thing that stood out to me was the importance of surrounding myself with people who bought into and believed in my vision. Over the past couple months of working with people, I was able to identify those who truly believed in the vision and those who were there for a season. Life happens, challenges come up and situations change. However, wisdom, time and experience tends to reveal the motives of a person’s heart. At CPF, we were privileged to have some volunteers who truly went up and beyond the call of duty to ensure firstly that the children were well cared for and the goals of the program were met. I am grateful to them all. Sadly, two of our absolutely amazing volunteers, Sareeka and Andrell would not be with us in the upcoming term as they head back out to school for the final year of their teaching program, however we look forward to having them back on board in 2019.

The second thing that stood out to me over the last couple of months was that, I have more skills than I thought. J I never imagined that I would be preparing refreshments two days per week for fifty plus children. Who knows, maybe I need to look into catering as a business. On a serious note though, preparing the meals week after week taught me that as a leader, I am required to do what it takes, to ensure that my vision is successful. Even if it means doing things I am not accustomed to. Thankfully, there were persons around me who saw the need to assist with the meal prep, both physically and financially, and that was a big relief.

Thirdly and maybe most important lesson for me on the journey has been to ‘keep walking in faith’. There were many times I did not know all the answers, I had many questions about whether or not I was doing the right thing, was CPF fulfilling the mandate, were these children being impacted? For each question that I asked myself, came a resounding response either from students, parents or administrative staff at the school that CPF was indeed doing something great. Knowing that we are able to make a difference, however small or big, in the life of a child, is truly a humbling experience. Yet, I know that there is much more work to be done, and the monitoring and evaluation of the work continues.

Moving forward, I know that was has been accomplished thus far is just the tip of the iceberg. I am truly looking forward to the greater impact that CPF would have, not only on children at our current Center, but in other areas that we will venture in to.

Starting next week, look out for blogs, from amazing people, like yourself, who would share their thoughts, best practices, success stories and words of encouragement from various parts of the world. I’m super excited for what’s in store. Until then, keep good, keep in touch and remember #eachonecanreachone J