During my participation in a social enterprise project organised by the university for the Community Sparkhill Project, I was involved with the Odara (Women’s Support Network) team. This consisted of handling the organisation’s Domestic Referral System and their Women’s Mentoring Scheme.
As part of the project, my team and I familiarised ourselves with the organisation’s limitations, and addressed ways in which the system and scheme could progress. It was necessary for myself and the team to be efficient in our collaboration of collecting information on different aspects of the project, and then bring the research together.
Throughout the project we encountered unforeseen circumstances which delayed our progress receiving crucial information regarding the current referral system, mentoring scheme and final completion. However, despite these set-backs, the team viewed it as an opportunity to take initiative and coordinate the necessary steps to take.
My previous experience working in fast-paced environments in both clinical and non-clinical settings helped me be an integral member of the team. We decided to prioritise pioneering the recommendations for the Domestic Violence Referral system, instead of focusing on both tasks. This allowed us to complete the task efficiently and accurately without jeopardising the deadline.
Throughout my time working on the project, I successfully implemented my existing problem-solving skills by completing our own research, whilst also maintaining professionalism. We were diplomatic in regards to influencing the di
rector of Odara to stick to deadlines and successfully obtained the organisation’s end goals. This helped the group to stay on track with the time frame for the project, whilst also producing effective results.
I believe this project has helped me implement and build on existing skills such as teamwork and practicality, however it also helped me gain new insights into the importance of negotiating and influencing the people I worked with to meet deadlines and goals. My ability to recognise my own strengths and weaknesses was fundamental for assigning responsibilities to create an efficient team. I took time to reflect on problems encountered, thus learning from my previous experiences in order to improve on myself.
We worked on this project with the assistance from Alison (Assistant Director) and the Odara team’s Business Mentor Rameesha. Their feedback throughout was extremely useful and I will carry this feedback forward with me as I hopefully complete similar projects like Odara in the future. The team are very grateful for their input, advice and commitment towards us throughout the process.
The director of Odara was very thrilled at the end of the project and stated “I was impressed with their professionalism and the way they managed themselves in their different teams. They even helped to manage my time!”
Feedback From Our Client
“I was impressed with their professionalism and the way they managed themselves in their different teams. They even helped to manage my time!.”
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