Life Skills How to be a good team member

The topic explained

A FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Project A, read whole

Note

Text A: A food for thought My class decided pretty quickly to do something for Ramadan to help less fortunate people in Irbid, and we had the idea that we wanted to create a place where people could eat desserts for free. I wanted to make knafeh, but everyone had different ideas, and we were all trying to persuade everyone else of how good we each were at cooking different desserts. To be honest, we wasted a lot of time arguing about it so no wonder no one could hear what Noura was trying to say. When I took in what it was, I got everyone else to listen. The point she was making was that if we really wanted to help people who needed food, it would be better to make pilaf because it’s a rice dish, so it’s much more filling. Knafeh and baklava are delicious, but you can only eat a little as they’re very sweet. With pilaf, we would be able to make a huge pan of it and keep adding to it as more people came. We all instantly recognised that it was a much better idea, and so that’s what we did. And now, we’ve got other people involved and we’ve set up three other places around the city to give out food. So far, we’ve served over 1,000 people. It’s amazing to know that our social action project had such an impact!

Project B, read whole

Now read the second project.

B ART FOR CHARITY

Note

Text B: Art for charity We really wanted to do something a bit different and perhaps more creative. We already knew that quite a few of us were artistic, so I suggested that perhaps we could make some artwork about our YES experience and have an exhibition where we would sell our work for charity. Everyone was really enthusiastic about the idea, but we did have some issues trying to sort out who should do what. Several people wanted to be in charge of putting the exhibition together, although no one actually knew much about the process of doing this. Eventually, we managed to agree on everyone’s roles, and I volunteered and was put in charge. I figured it could be a useful skill to put on my CV. I found someone from the local art college to help me, and they let us use their art studio for free. It wasn’t the easiest project to work on, but when we had finally completed it, there was an enormous sense of satisfaction. It wasn’t the best art ever made, but we did manage to sell almost everything and raised quite a lot of money for a children’s charity.

What does teamwork mean to you?

Now talk about teamwork.

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” Michael Jordan
“The nicest thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side.” Margaret Carty

Listening: what is YES?

YOUTH ENGAGEMENT SQUAD

1 What is YES?

2 Who will I be with?

3 What happens in each week?

4 What is a social action project?

5 What happens after the programme?

What did each of them take away from their experience?