Challenges and Learnings From Mega Project
With every passing day we have to face new challenges and situations. As our mega projects progressed; we faced a number of challenges and had a lot of learnings too. From teamwork to time management and delegation of responsibilities it seems sometimes too daunting a task to handle it. We succeeded with a purpose in mind to make a positive impact in the society and continue with our routine activities while going an extra mile to come up with solutions and more creative strategies. Grit, a positive trait based on passion, perseverance, and motivation. Things don’t get easier, rather you develop an attire to handle and face with the passage of time by your grit to accomplish what you’ve started.
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” T.S. Eliot
Following are the highlights and reflections on the progress, challenges and learnings from the Mega project.
1) What is the progress that your Mega project circle has made on the project?
The progress that our circle has made is:
• This time we arranged our session on google meet from our previous experience on zoon it was not feasible. On zoom we cannot arrange our session for more than 40 minutes and it is difficult for all participants to rejoin the meeting in this situation as we lost the attention of participants.
- This time we made google forms for the participants before the session and exit ticket for the feedback of our participants.
• This time we arrange our session for 1 hour and 30 minutes and arrange more than 30 participants which remains till the end of the session.
• This time we made our session more feasible as participants joined the session at the end of the session.
- The big progress that our circle made is that we arrange our session in a very short time and conduct with the coordination of all circle members.
Today exam anxiety is a major issue among all students. Exam anxiety is the experience of feeling an intense moment of fear or panic before and/or during an exam. It has a negative impact on your mental health and performance. Almost every student feels nervous or experiences some level of anxiety when faced with an exam. Today the major cause of exam anxiety is Covid-19.
Online/E-exams are more stressful for one third of students. Exam duration, mode of questions, navigation and technical problems are major causes for student’s exam anxiety. Remote E-exams experience has a negative impact on student’s study habits too.
We are coming up with this topic: Exams anxiety and it’s coping strategies. So don’t worry, we are going to give you answers to every question related to your exams anxiety problems and will tell you how to get rid from this anxiety and problem.
2) What were the challenges that your circle has faced with respect to the mega project and how have you all solved these problems and overcome those challenges?
In the second session, we contacted Captain Noman, a psychologist from the Pakistan army who is on service. He had accepted our proposal for the last session to come on google live room for just one hour.
The problem we faced at that time was that Captain Noman had prevented us from showing him from an army background. We had decided that we will not show him from an army background.
When two days were left for the session, we contacted him for the session but unfortunately he replied that he was posted to GHQ for some international courses due to which he will not be able to come live as psychologist from GHQ. So we became very upset at that time but we didn’t lose hope for the best.
Rearranged the new psychologist, when we failed on inviting captain Noman then we had decided to arrange another one for the session within two days.
For this we had tried more to do so, fortunately we had contacted a female psychologist Sumaira Saeed the Head of Psychology department at Health Care Professionals Alliance. She happily accepted our proposal.
Engaging with students due to a Psychologist issue we were very in trouble to make a banner for the Facebook page also any other social media to share for the students to come on to the live session. There were two days with us for the campaign with the banner but we had tried hard to paste the banner on all social media platforms. Alhumdulliah on session day enough students had joined the session.
We all circle members were interacting with students during the session and we had replied to every student’s questions in the comments section also on live.
3) Have you changed your approach in any way? Are there any significant changes that your group has made since your last blog?
We have changed our approach a little bit. As from the response of our first webinar we came to know that we need to expand our age group as everyone needs counseling about anxiety and depression. So in our first webinar we mainly focused on school going children and in this we extended this to college and university going students also. And shared the strategies for Coping with Exam Anxiety.
Learning from our last experience we made a feedback from as well. In which we asked people about their experience of webinar, what they have learnt from this and what topic or aspect of life they want to discuss with the experts in the next webinar. Because we realized that people do know that at which point they are lacking or need counseling but are unable to find the right platform to discuss these issues. In addition to this we are collecting contact details from our attendees so in this way we need not to approach each person again and again to inform them about the next session and keep everyone updated easily.
From the last blog we changed our session to Google Meet from Zoom. So that we can continue our meeting for more than 40 minutes.
4) What is the impact that you have generated till date? How many people have you served or organizations you have collaborated with or customers you have gained etc.?
Here are some of the beneficial impacts of online sessions:
Good Choice for Remote Areas: Online session offers access to mental health information and treatment for people in rural or remote areas. Those living in those areas may simply not have access to any other form of mental health treatment because there are limited or no mental health practices in their geographic area. So, our sessions helped those students who do not have facilities for mental health treatment.
Driving long distances and spending a lot of time off a busy schedule seeking therapy can be a burden for many people who need help. If you have reliable access to the internet, online sessions give you relatively quick and easy access to treatments that otherwise would not have been available.
Accessibility for People with Physical Limitations: Mobility can be a big deal when it comes to accessing mental health care. People who are unable to leave the house for various reasons, can find in online sessions a useful alternative to traditional psycho-therapeutic contexts.
Convenience and Affordability: Online sessions are usually quite convenient and affordable. Since the teenagers will be attending online sessions in the comfort of your home, without any fee or registration.
Counseling is More Accessible: The internet makes mental health counseling more accessible. People may feel comfortable talking to friends and family about physical health problems, but they may not feel the same when talking about equally important mental health issues. Accessing online makes it easier to overcome the stigma that has historically been associated with mental health problems. It allows people to express and voice internal concerns and internal dialogue, without worrying about leaving them or abandoning them accordingly. Participating in counseling allows you to share your feelings with someone who is properly trained and equipped to deal with and help you. At the end of both sessions’ teenagers were allowed to ask any question. Teenagers asked their queries and questions without any hesitation and got their solutions.
Organizations and Customers: Due to COVID-19 situation, we decided to use internet resources for working on the mental health of teenagers. And nowadays, everyone has internet availability so we held two online sessions till now. About 30–40 students participated in the sessions. All circle members played their significant role in convincing students about the importance of sessions. They also played their constructive role in gaining customers. In these sessions, professional psychiatrists helped us to work for the mental health of teenagers, especially students.
Audience Served: This time we served more than 30 participants which remained till the end of the session.
5) What have you done or plan on doing to ensure the on doing to ensure the sustainability of your project?
We planned sessions on google meet. Where we received the services of a versatile and expert psychologist because our project is on the base of mental issues and emotions .As we know that our societies are much suffering from anxiety and depression. Every person in the society is suffering from mental issues, either it may be internal (family issues) or it may be external (society issues). This is the biggest issue of our society and approximately, many mentally disturbed people are present in every home of the society. For this, we’ll arrange and structure the meeting, first we advertise on social media to make people aware, specially our family members. We delivered our message to each and every one who was in our approach. To ensure the sustainability of our project we will arrange more sessions. As we are suffering from this pandemic situation so we did not arrange sessions physically but now we are planning to conduct sessions physically in college or university keeping in view its feasibility. For more sustainability we will try to engage our participants through different activities. We will continue our sessions and will provide teenagers a healthy environment as well as a healthy mind set.
