Sophilicity: September 2015

From the ages of 15-17 years old, many teenagers are given the opportunity provided by the NCS to participate in a 3 week programme. The programme is otherwise acknowledged as NCS The Challenge. The maximum payment for the programme is £50 (excluding travel to the programme and back). This payment includes accommodation, activities, food and drinks etc.

In my opinion, I found this programme was an amazing experience. I developed friendships with new people, as well as new skills. For my programme, I participated in the Summer of 2014. This led me to return to NCS The Challenge as an Associate Mentor, which involved helping and advising the participants in the third week of The Challenge.

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture with my NCS Volunteer Hoodie, instead here's a selfie with some of members of Team Edwards whom I was working with.

Being an Associate Mentor led to many responsibilities, I had to know where to draw the line, although I was only a volunteer I had to consider working in the mindset of a Staff e.g. paying attention to certain situations and knowing how to deal with them correctly. But as a young person myself, I understood how the young people felt and in the end interacted with them in a way which would make them feel comfortable with me but also gave me authority in important circumstances.

Looking back at last year, I never got to explain my experience of NCS. The weeks are separated into different sections. The first week is the Personal Challenge. For my first week, I went to Wales to participate in camping, rock-climbing, canoeing but we also got to go to the beach which was a treat unlike other groups. Just looking back at pictures made me laugh so much, it was such an exciting experience, I want to go back again and if I could, I would do the whole experience again.

I think the one thing that probably scared me most was the fact that there was 7 guys (8 if we include the mentor) and there was only 4 girls. So of course us girls all stuck to each other. And I knew 2/3 of the girls as the other two attended my secondary school, but the last member of our girl group fit in straight away aha. The senior mentor wanted us to separate so there was a mixture of girls and boys in each canoe, differentiating in experience and skill. I didn't have any experience of canoeing but picked it up pretty quickly and it allowed me to get to know my group better.

As for camping, I was terrified, there was reasons why I dropped out of DofE... Let's say I wasn't the most prepared as well, and came out with ridiculous blisters. I warn anyone camping you should be pretty prepped with blister plasters and thick socks (that's where I made the stupid mistake... opps).

But as a group it was a worthy effort. We all relied on each other building on the four aspects which make up the "TRUE awards". TRUE stands for Trust, Responsibility, Understanding and Empathy. I probably wouldn't have made it if it wasn't for the support for my other teammates. My friend and I even made an emotional speech at the TRUE award nominations to convey this aha (I think our acting was pretty on pointe, featuring fake tears... Yes... We went there-) but that's what brought us all closer.

The guys got pretty close, as you can see from the pictures, but I think the physical activities brought us together. Such as rock climbing, we had to trust each other if we were going to get to the top and back safely. I'm not gonna lie, I didn't survive without a few scrapes here and there, but I think even the instructor acknowledged I was incredibly accident prone... Oh dear... Not gonna lie though, I can't forget the view from Wales was amazing aha.

And the beach, I think the best part was getting ice cream and having a giant water fight between our team. I think my friend and I made a deadly move to initiate a water fight with the guys, they were fortunate they could strip from their shirts whilst us girls lived the life struggle of trying to avoid getting soaked... RIP.

Let's just ignore the fact I made irrelevant screaming, but hey the impact of that dive was way too much for me aha. Our group was pretty much a bunch of laughs. From some of the guys to rolling down hills in Wales, one of which receiving a nose bleed... But... The fact the senior mentor participated in the hill rolling really says a lot in itself aha.

On to the second week, we moved into our university accommodations. For my wave we moved into Kingston university accommodations, Kingston Hill campus if I remember right? It was nice to finally have Wi-Fi access, phone signal and charging ports but also our own rooms!

For our second week, we focused on our skills in the basis of the Team Challenge. As Team Edwards we were the Media group. We had 4 other groups in our wave, Reiss, Sabesan, Perham and Jackman. Each of our team names were the basis of young successful people based on a different field. Edwards was named after Jamal Edwards (Media), Sabesan after Dirujan Sabesan (Photography) as well as Reiss (Drama), Perham (Sport) and Jackman (Music). For our activity, we had to produce videos and edit them on the basis of people from a dementia home in Surbiton. Activities varied based on the skills, and we were taught about each skill through our assigned practitioner.

Don't worry, it was pretty interesting experience, and it doesn't mean we had fun doing other things. In our wave, we were the pilot wave for Kingston so we did things differently to other waves in the country. Our evening performances were probably the most eventful, from Bohemian Rhapsody renditions to Rihanna mashups and various dance routines. I was in the first group to perform, and we performed a mash up of Rihanna including Stay, Umbrella, What's Your Name and Take A Bow. I gotta say, it was pretty nerve-wracking as one the main singers, but it wasn't the most terrifying, as I performed in front of the members of the Dementia home as well, and they were really supportive.

Here's a rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody from the boys of MRK Wave 8.

Although let's ignore my irrelevant commentary once again... Opps.

With the accommodations I felt we got even closer, from the basis of getting to know members of other groups as each floor would be assigned a shared kitchen. The four girls of Edwards were joined with two members of Reiss, and let's say it was overall a great laugh. 3 of us were assigned to cooking whilst 3 of us were assigned to cleaning (since us 3 couldn't cook and didn't want to risk any food poisoning occurring...) and then we had a fun time organising our evening performance as well as gossiping about our lives and NCS aha.

There was also a cooking contest involved, in the form of Come Dine With Me. The Programme Leader and the Assistant Programme Leader went around each of the floors to taste each other of the dishes, considering presentation as well as taste. The winning team came to Edwards, as it happened that all the boys of Team Edwards were assigned to the same floor. They made the effort to dress up in shirts and ties, as well as gelling their hair. They presented themselves to the PL and APL in such a formal manner like waiters as well as including music and much more.

One thing, I remember about this week, was the fact we were all a bit awkward even after the first week, but as soon majority of Edwards and a few other members of the wave brought out their Nintendo DS' we all had a great laugh. The girls and guys were competing in Mario Kart on DS, and I have to go to say, it's great to feel victory or surpass overly competitive people aha.

On the third week of our NCS, we completed the Real Challenge. This involved organising a social action activity as well as presenting and pitching our idea it in front of the Dragons at the end of the week. If I'm honest, this week was a bit tedious and usually is the one which everyone finds boring. For our charity, we got given The Challenge. You might ask why The Challenge? Well, the reason we were given the challenge was to raise awareness of social integration and to raise funds for those who are not as financially able to fund their NCS experience.

From starting from basics of making our pitch, to create social media sites with our idea. We also had a professional visit where we considered as a dress rehearsal before our final pitch, where we went to visit VSO. VSO is a business which takes on volunteers and places them in local partners which require assistance. VSO also allows you to participate in the ICS, which is similar to NCS but on a international level. They really liked our idea, and we hoped it would be successful so we could £100 for our social action day.

On the final day of the week, we actually got Jamal Edwards as one of our Dragons which increased the pressure for us as Team Edwards. We would be presenting in front of the person who our team was named after. We aimed to do him proud. Each group was incredibly successful from incorporating media into their pitches as well as social networking hashtags.

You can check out some our pitch in a video posted by NCS. They included clips from our each team's pitches to reveal the final decision. For our wave, the winner as well as winning £100 for their pitch would also win £50 worth of Nandos vouchers.

NCS: The Final Pitch Day ft Jamal Edwards:

The week came to an end after 3 weeks of summer we spent the past few weeks seeing each other non-stop from a bunch of close friendships formed to even a few relationships. We would be seeing each other during our September weekends including the 99 Challenges as well as our Social Action day.

Thank you for reading, and I hope this inspires you to participate in NCS, or inspires someone you know to participate.

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