Completing Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award

Whilst I was on The Challenge, during the first week of activity in Wales, I was able to complete my Gold Duke of Edinburgh award. The Challenge gave me the option of whether I wanted to do the award whilst on the trip and I accepted as I have already completed my Bronze and Silver awards previously. It comprised a series of activities which had to fulfill the Physical, Voluntary and Skills aspects of the award, similarly to the IB CAS program. My Physical section included rock climbing, mountain climbing, camping, gauge walking, playing a variety of sports (basketball, tennis, football, etc.) and others throughout the course of two weeks. My Skills section included taking leadership of my group, organisation, setting up camps, encouragement and others. And my voluntary section involved creating a campaign for a charitable cause and helping out in a nursery. This is useful for CAS because I increased my awareness of my own strengths and areas for growth with the activities that we did and undertook new challenges through these activities. I planned and initiated activities by being leader of the team and also worked collaboratively with others when having to complete team challenges and I showed perseverance and commitment to do these. I had also engage with issues of global importance by volunteering for a community visit in some allotments and also considered the ethical implications of my actions like helping the environment and raising money for this cause. I also developed my existing and new skills throughout the D of E and became an inquirer, knowledgeable, a thinker, a communicator, principled, open-minded, caring, a risk-taker, balanced, reflective.

This was challenging for me because each and every one of the activities were mostly new to me and I was constantly forced to make quick decisions and to solve problems as a leader of the team. I had never done such an intensive amount of physical activities,

My Goals and Aims were to complete the Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award and enjoy myself whilst learning new skills and meeting new people whilst going camping and reaching the top of my first mountain: Mount Idris (Cadair Idris), a popular site for mountain climbers and walkers in Wales which was said to have been used by a giant as an armchair to gaze at the stars ('cadair' meaning chair and 'Idris being the Giant's name)

This is Creative because throughout the different activities, especially whilst designing the charity campaign, I had to use creativity and imagination for problem solving and getting ideas. It was also Action because I did many physical activities during the expedition and other sections that I had to complete like Skills. This was also Service because I helped others to fulfill the activities, taught sports to children, did fundraising and prepared a campaign to do this.