Andrea Chakma

We met Andrea at our Award Holder Ceremony in Toronto earlier this year. Hear what she has to say. 

This is a great opportunity, I think doing the Gold Award because you get to explore a lot of different extracurriculars and different passions, and you get to learn more about yourself as an individual as well.  

Tell us about your Award experience.
I started this Award right before the pandemic started. So once the pandemic hit, it was like, oh my gosh, how am I going to be finishing this Award? What am I going to do? But I was still able to do it through lots of perseverance. But also, I think it was an amazing activity to do during the pandemic, being stuck at home and not having really that network to connect with not being able to see a lot of people. The Award provided an activity for me and a goal for me to keep on track with. This was that one consistent that stayed on throughout the entire I would say, pandemic journey.  

What was your favorite part of the Award and why was it great?
Ooh, that’s a good one. I think one of my favorite experiences was doing the Gold Project, which I did in Taiwan. I was attending a Girl Guide conference, and it was a great opportunity for me to not only learn about people from different cultures, but also to understand, and learn more about leadership. The Gold Project is that opportunity for you to do that one.  I would say that the Gold Project was one of my favorite parts of the entire Award.

What has been your biggest takeaway or lesson that you’ve learned?
I think my biggest takeaway has been that you can always achieve something if you put your mind to it. I think the perfect example in my life would have been the athletics portion. I was never an athletic individual.  When I realized, oh, that’s a part of the Award, I was like, what am I going to do? 

I started off running and I think at first it was really hard, and it was hard for me to get myself out there to go running, get myself fit. With time it got easier and knowing that this was a requirement and that, you know, I had to have a goal, it really helped me to push myself outside of my boundaries and not think that this isn’t something you can’t do because you can totally do it.  

You just must put your mind and soul into it. I mean, you put in that time and effort, start small and then go bigger. It’s taught me to persevere a lot more and to really understand that I can do a lot of different things if I really put my mind and soul into it.  

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