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CAS – a student’s perspective
CAS (Creativity, Action, Service) is a two-year programme that students are required to participate in, whilst completing their IB Diploma.
The CAS programme is an opportunity for all IB students to engage actively and creatively with their school and local community. As part of the programme, all students are required to complete a CASproject which they singlehandedly manage and facilitate.
Alice McCormac, 3u, has been involved in the CAS programme since Pre-IB, when she quickly joined forces with students in the Diploma Programme and started as a volunteer at the Red Cross deportation centre Udrejse Center Sjælsmark in Birkerød. Since then, Alice has been volunteering for the local Red Cross charity shop, as well as organizing clothes-drives and recruiting volunteers.
An important part of Alice’s CAS work is the connection to the local environment, and the people she has met during her various volunteering tasks. She says, “My favorite thing about being a volunteer is being included in a world that is outside of school and engaging with people that have a very different background from your own”. In recruiting volunteers, Alice has gained important insight into how everyone can make a difference: “CAS is beneficial in terms of encouraging you to try new things. It is nice to see that a lot of people have a lot to offer, even if they do not know that themselves”.
When immersing herself with the local environment, Alice – a boarder at the boarding school – has gained a true connection with the town of Birkerød, and a deeper understanding of Non-Governmental Organisations. She adds: “I think doing volunteering as part of CAS has definitely helped me get to know Birkerød. I am half-Danish, but live at the boarding school, so I didn’t have a connection to Birkerød when I first came here, but being a volunteer with the Red Cross has taught me a lot about my local town”.
While it is hard work volunteering alongside studies and having a social life, Alice finds that being involved in the CAS programme provides her with a space in which she can allow herself to take a break from the pressure of being an IB student and explains, “When I volunteer, the focus is no longer on me, but on someone else, and you get to reflect on your own privileges”. Furthermore, Alice reflects on how she has gained important life-skills from her life as a volunteer, “When you have to help coordinate projects, you also have to put yourself in situations that you otherwise wouldn’t find yourself in – for example talking in front of my grade or the school, is something I wouldn’t normally do, but CAS pushed me to try it”.
Alice’s CAS journey has led to a newfound understanding of where life could take her after she graduates. She concludes, “Working with CAS has helped me become clearer on what I want to do in the future, hopefully working within the NGO world”.
