A Second Race Around the World

As I mentioned previously, I am quite the Amazing Race fan, still wishing I had taken the time to apply for The Amazing Race Canada.  My love of the show came through in another event  I was part of creating, this time for local youth at a community center during May Youth Week.  Involvement in this event was strictly voluntary and I loved every second of it.

This time creating the event of my dreams was some what restricted as I learned really what it meant to handle restrictions and liability concerns.  As one would guess, this came as a result of the event being delivered by the city and city staff overseeing the event.  I was still able to stay within the race around the world theme, but on a slightly different note.

For this event I created "passports" for the teams of 2-3 children to use as they traveled to different countries located in different areas of the community center.  To keep it simple they were able to visit the areas in any order they chose, but understood that if another team was there they may have to wait for them to finish first.  Once they collected all the required stamps they were able to make their way to the finish line for some celebratory pizza.

Some of the countries and events included:
-learning a traditional German dance from a video (performed by myself and my oh so helpful boyfriend)
-turning their partner into a mummy in Egypt
-take shots at targets with a soccer ball in Brazil
-recreating a masterpiece painting in France

The event ran very well and the children had a great time, even though we had to have "border patrol" in the halls making sure they weren't running from room to room.

Some of the key skills I developed while creating this event included the ability to be a leader in situations where I am meeting and working with people for this time.  This event made me much more confident in the future when working with volunteers and on teams that had to accomplish a number of tasks shortly after meeting.  Prior to this I had always been more of a supporter, doing everything I could to ensure those around me were getting access to resources and completing tasks as required.  This position allowed me to realize when I need to step forward and take some control to make sure events run smoothly and successfully.

The event also allowed me to be quick on my feet with developing multiple solutions when faced with red tape so to speak.  To put this in perspective my first idea for this event was to have it in a local park and work with local businesses to allow the youth to come into their stores to receive clues.  I was really hoping we could work on challenging the stigma that all the youth in the area are up to no good.  But I suppose I can keep that in the back of my mind and who knows maybe some day I will have the chance.

It was also my first time working in a much stricter environment with regards to safety and ability considerations.  It was very important for this event to be accessible to anyone who would like to play without creating the possibility of exclusion.  I have become much more attentive to how I word anything that  a participant will need to read during the lead up and execution of an event.  This I found has been very beneficial as not everyone is aware of how what they say can or rather cannot be interpreted by others.

It was an amazing event to be a part of and the smiling laughing faces of all the youth involved was more than enough to remind me why I love doing this work.

"A child's smile is worth more than all the money in the world."