When you become a senior, everything changes!

In ASI, when you officially become a senior, everything changes! Everything skyrockets, from ego to the stress levels. But usually, the one thing that keeps your mind relatively sane during school- appart from lunch and the 5 mins breaks where chit chatting with friends is a must-is senior project where you are empowered to pick anything you want to do.

When I officially became a senior, I went through all the stages previous seniors would tell me about, but I was extremely excited for my senior project. I thought of it all during my junior year: ASI MUN, but that didn’t go as planned and that eventually became a dream that I hope somebody else can accomplish. Nonetheless, I did not lose hope because I knew that I had a few ideas as plan B in the back of my mind, and they were all related to goodwill and providing aid to the community that I lived in for most of my life. I talked to my dad about it and he gave me the idea of Termilat, and because I visited it a few times before, I thought it was the perfect senior project. Little did I know that when the school year begins many others thought of the same thing as I did (so I kissed my dream of doing an individual project goodbye). Nonetheless, I was excited to see how will working as a whole class in one project will turnout.

In the month of October, we planned a weekend getaway to Azrou in order to set the ground rules for the senior project class. We agreed that:

• We will have a group project except for Fatima Zohra who wanted to do an individual project,

• All events under the title Senior Project will be divided by head, but anybody can increase their income by gaining donations or sponsors aside,

• We will be helping Termilat by:

• Providing electricity

• Providing water

• Possibly building another building (if we had enough money)

• Refurbishing the school

• We will be going on a trip to Italy where:

• We will learn about the culture, food, politics, and history,

• We will work with NGOs in order to bring back our knowledge and help the Termilat kids,

But things didn’t go as we planned because we did not know the whole picture. We did not know that the land is not owned by anyone and that we can’t build anything (so the electricity, the water, and the building hopes are gone), we did not know that we will be faced with harsh news that will make our jaws drop and forever change our view on the project, we did not know that we will have to undergo harsh and slow administrative issues that we will need to take care of…. So we are completely in a new place where we are kind of starting from scratch with new goals as well as a new team of 5 (Mouataz decided to do an individual project).

Our goals are more realistic now where we are planning on:

• Completing a list of tasks that the teacher provided us with,

• Refurbishing the school,

• Building a bathroom,

I believe that these goals are achievable, and I am trying to do the best I can with what I have and make this project successful, but in order for it to be successful, many issues need to be tackled. As a class, we need to work on many things as soon as possible. We need to work on communication inside and outside the team, we need to work on the same pace, and we need to change our “marketing” strategies in order to gain more attention.

I believe that in a team we all rise together or we all fall together. Although so far I don’t see it, I really hope that it happens. In every team, there are highs and lows, we are at a low position right now, but I believe that we can get back up on our feet!!!