TATA Adventure(A learning essay on the TSAF experience)

Submitted by: Jos CostaDate: 12/02/2015

The Tata Steal Adventure Foundation (TSAF), founded in 1984, is an organization that offers special programs for children, youth, corporate employees and senior citizens. Using adventures sports, the specialized personnel presents to the participants actual problems, real consequences and real constraints. The main aim is to develop a group spirit inside the teams and to develop leadership skills on each one of the team members.

Day 1The training facilities where we were sent are located in the city of Jamshedpur. To get there we had to take a 7 hour train from Bhubaneswar and a bus from the TSAF was sent to pick us up from the station and take us to the camp. Firstly we were divided in 4 different teams and a leader was appointed to each team with the information that a different leader should be elected everyday by all of the team members. Our designated leader for the first day was Mr. Chetan Gupta, being the other team members myself, Stefan Kotsopoulos, Ankur Bijoy, Joke Van de Casseye, Emily Bower and Matthias Pletinckx. Then, we did an ice-breaking game which aims to bring the participants closer. In our particular case, this step was not fundamental as we all know each other quite well by now. Afterwards, we had our first challenge, an obstacles competition in which the teams were competing to achieve the best time, with the particularity that the team members could help each other to overcome this task. It was a very interesting start because although we did the worst time (a lot because we were the first ones to go and the other groups had the advantage of seeing what we were doing wrong), it was an exercise that helped to bring us all together. In the afternoon, after a refreshing lunch, we did a different challenge involving numbers but, above all, coordination. This time there was no disadvantage for the first to go and we scored first place for the first time.

Day 2After a good dinner, a good night of sleep and waking up really early to do some outdoor morning exercises, we were told that after breakfast we would repeat the obstacles competition from the day before to see if there was a significant improvement. This time we planned very well our strategy with our second-day leader Matthias Pletinckx assuming a decisive role in leading the team. As result, we scored the best time but, as the final result of the competition was calculated as the average of the two days, we finished on the 3rd position. Afterwards, we exploited some outdoor activities such as rock climbing, caving, rappelling and sliding. Although this activities didnt count for the competition, it was one more great opportunity to improve our group skills as mutual aid was an important element of it. Its also important to refer that we had a natural in our group that helped a lot: Joke has this passion for climbing and every activity that has to do with exploring mountains.In the afternoon, and after an invigorating lunch, we were had another activity planned for us: treasure hunting. We had a piece of paper in which we needed to put the stamp left by the staff on each one of the designated points that we had marked on the map. The tricky part was that after 10 minutes, any extra minute would start to be penalized and points were taken out from the final score. With all of this, Matthias decided not to go for all the stamps, but to get the ones that could give us the biggest amount of points. We came 2 minutes late, but still found enough stamps to finish this task in the 2nd place.

Day 3On the 3rd day, we moved to another area of Jamshedpur, near the lake in which the next part of the activities were to be carried out. This time I was the designated the leader and the tasks that we had to face involved rafting and improvised rafting, task in which we had to build our own raft using bamboo sticks, ropes and floating containers. In both of the challenges we scored 2nd placed which in the overall day putted us in the 1st place (for that day). We got to know that in the general competition we ended up in the 2nd place, only one point behind the winning team and, after an exhausting day, we were sent to cook our own dinner in an outside fireplace. This time we could rely on our Chef Ankur who prepared us a delicious meal with such few resources.

Day 4Time to pack and make the last effort: Tracking a mountain. 2,5 kilometers up and 2,5 kilometers down. Very good to clear our minds and connect with the Nature, the view was amazing and a lot of interaction with the whole group and the staff.After this, time to come back to Bhubaneswar. In general I would say that this was an amazing experience. I definitely tested my limits, especially with the rappelling (looking down is frightening), we had a lot of fun together, the group was amazing, the staff was also incredible and in between a lot of fun, we did train our leadership skills because to overcome this challenges in good way, leadership and team cooperation are fundamental and go hand in hand.