For our ES&S end of year trip some of the members of the ES&S class left for a 5 day trip to the Maldives. We went there to see how the Islands of Maldives manage their waste both organic and inorganic.

During the trip we went to a recycling facility on an island call Dhigurah which is part of the south Ari Atoll.  We went to this island because they are known for having one of the best recycling and waste management facilities in the Maldives.  we went here with Faizya Ahmed whom is the leader of the island council.  He took us around the island showing us all the facilities including composting facility, plastic management, glass and metal recycling, water treatment facilities and electricity facilities on the island. It was interesting to see how such a small island functioned.

During our stay at Dhigurah we also had a whale shark encounter. We teamed up with divers of Maldives whom took us on a whale shark safari. During this safari we saw whale sharks up close and  learned about them and how they are an umbrella species, meaning that when you protect them and their habitat you also protect the whole ecosystem.

After spending 4 days at Dhigurah we went to a resort island called Summer island. on the Island they had their own power supply and reverse osmosis desalination facility that takes salty undrinkable ocean water in to drinkable freshwater.

on the Island they also had their own refurbished/restored coral reef on the edge of the island that were home to black tip reef sharks, colorful fish, rays and eels. they used metal nets to help coral to grow on and stabilize themselves to the ground.

During this trip I learned a lot about Umbrella spices and the importance of protecting them and how humans solve environmental issues of plastic waste and water scarcity.

For Service My group conducted our annual Dry rations Drive to raise resources to donate to the Maharagama Cancer Hospital.

We ask the head of the Cancer hospital what food that they need the most and we distribute these food items across the grade level. We asked Each grade level from Pre School to Grade 12 to donate different Dry rations to us such as :

Brown Sugar

Chickpea

Tea

Vegetable Oil

Dahl

Samaposha (A Sri Lankan cereal based nutritious supplement)

& Milk powder

we unpacked all the rations we collected over a 2 week period and organized them into boxes before delivering and gifting the food.

After organizing the rations and distributing it into gift bags we left to the cancer hospital and donated the gift bags to alll the residents of the hospital and a new years gift.

Intro:

The Hope for Kids service group hosts an annual Cricket match for the whole school including the cleaning staff. The goal of this Cricket match is to raise money for our service group so that we can buy Food and basic necessities like bedsheets and towels for the Maharagama Children’s Cancer Hospital.

Pre-match:

I made a Google form to send out to School staff, Service staff, teachers, and students so that they can sign up to play in the cricket match people to sign up for the cricket match. I linked it to Google Sheets to make it easier to make teams and check if people have paid. I Also made the  posters to advertise our cricket match to the school and printed and put them around school And Organized teams, team colors, captains, and rules of the match.  On the morning of the Match I helped set up the stands and score stand.

During Match:

I was playing in the match so when I want playing I was helping with the score card and Ice cream stall. I also helped clean up and count money.

Post Match:

After the cricket match:

After collecting the money from all the other service groups we took a tally and then planed our future projects around the newly increased budget.

For Geography The class teamed up with the young reporters service group and we visited a Plastic recycling center and waste management plant which both aim to reduce our waste in Sri Lanka. The Plastic Recycling center separated plastics mostly bottles by color then the removed the labels and shredded them into small pellets afterwards they bagged them so that they could be used else where. The Waste management plant ran off of power created by its own biogas plant which was a bi product of the fertilizer that they were creating from wet biotic waste such as food and coconuts in a machine that they called the “Digester”. They were also drying and compacting cardboard and paper and were sending any glass and plastic  they received to a glass recycling plant.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month so my service asked the school to wear pink to raise awareness of breast cancer. We also had a presentation on the 25th of October in which we showcased a video that included how to detect breast cancer and why it is important to detect it early. A partner and I then did a small presentation about the cancer hospital that our service was donating to and helping. we said the facilities that they had and how much it cost to fully cure one patient. We also got lots of suggestions on how we can improve our service and how to increase members in our service. We got many helpful suggestions which we discussed in the next meeting and then we used them to make our next event even better such as including colored ribbons so that people who did have clothing in that color could participate.

For UN Day our school focused on SDG 16 which promotes inclusivity and diversity. We put ourselves into groups and created a presentation for the younger kids in our school and taught them about  Inclusivity and why it is important to be inclusive and make others feel welcome. We had many different activities such as a presentation, kahoots many many kahoots, and a game in which the kids made their civilization with their own rules and regulations to make it the most inclusive civilization they also had world leaders that they chose to help them. Many of the kids did a good job in choosing their leaders such as Nelson Mandela and  God himself, and some chose questionable leaders such as Adolf Hitler and Gabriel Jesus (A football player). But overall the kids had a good time and learned about inclusivity.

We then headed down to the canteen as many parents had set up stalls to give out food and drinks from their Home countries. After lunch, we met back with the kids and had a showcase of all the different civilizations and discussed how they were being inclusive and then we played more Kahoot.  At the end of the day, we cleaned up the room and packed away all the posters and went home

I am passionate about photography (Mainly wildlife photography) and I am always taking pictures on my camera. May it be the. birds outside my house or leopards in Yala. So for my CAS blog, I want to showcase all my best photographs I have taken over the course of the DP. I will be doing this by adding my photos to a slide show that can be accessed here.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PpOTJV9cjOnfSx6AwRm7GBrg9XxCvLwKfzL0SVDbyDs/edit?usp=sharing

I am in the hope for kids service group and on September 25th we held a school event on children’s cancer awareness month in which we asked all the students and staff to wear yellow to school.  This event  was planned to raise awareness of children’s cancer so more people were aware about children’s cancer and students and staff could be more cautious about the risks and causing factors of child cancer. This also  helped our service group by advertising our service so more people could join and raising money for the children’s cancer hospital in Maharagama.

We chose yellow because the color of Child cancer awareness is gold, but most people don’t have gold clothing so we chose yellow as it is the closest thing to gold and most people have yellow items of clothing.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award is a youth awards programme founded in the United Kingdom in 1956 by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, which has since expanded to 144 nations. I joined the Duke of Edinburg Silver Journey Award this year and Just completed the practice journey. We did many things on this expedition that thrived to help us get ready for the qualifying Sea Kayaking trip in March. The First thing that we did was learn how to take kyacks off Racks and how to move them on shore. We were then taught how to hold and use a paddle and pack a Kyack. We then got into the ocean and practiced steering, entering and exiting the Kyack With our guide Partick who is a Canadian professional Open Ocean Kyacker. We then returned to our camp to Set up our tents. We were then split into two groups one group made dinner and the other group (my group) Cleaned up the dishes and seating area. We then headed to bed in our small and hot tents. The next day my group washed the dishes after the other group had finished making breakfast they then headed to the beach to do some kyack training. My group stayed back and learned how to start a fire and then bake camping bread with Sujith Kant the head guide at Borderlands. We then made bread and learned how to read maps and use a compass with the owner of Borderlands Wade Campbel. After that, we had lunch and headed to the sea to do kyack training with Patrick again. We learned how to power the paddle and back paddle and how to perform T rescues and wet exits we unfortunately had to finish early because of the rain. Then My group made dinner for the whole staff team and all the students. We made fried rice with soya sauce, tomato spaghetti and a delicious deviled fish. We then headed to bed. In the morning We went straight to The Sea to do relays and practised emptying out water from a kyack. We then got back to camp and packed our stuff. We couldn’t take down our tents because it was raining too hard. We then headed back to school to end our 3-day trip.