On March 25th, the RCCI service group was finally able to have a service meet with the RCCI kids via zoom. Although it was not in person, it was still an opportunity to meet the kids. For some of the other members of the service group they have met the kids and been part of the group since a year or two earlier, however DP 1 (11th grade) was my first year with the RCCI group. I was very excited to meet the kids and I was even more glad that we were doing a lesson planned by the DP1’s.
As part of the group, we all had roles to play in this meeting. This was to make sure that the meeting would go more smoothly and not made up on the spot. Hence as part of our roles, Lithira and I hade to make a few slides introducing the RCCI service group to the kids this is because there might have been some new members, and we were informed parents of the kids would attend as well. So for the slides we had a slide in Sinhalese welcoming everyone, and then we transitioned into a slide explaining what RCCI is, its collaboration with OSC, and to keep it short and concise, a final slide explaining the lesson plan for the day (Art exhibition).
Next we moved onto actually starting the art exhibition. We had Anargi(a service leader) and Mrs. Manushi explain the last slide in Sinhalese to the teachers and kids at RCCI. The original plan that me and lithi had made was that we would all just turn on our cameras, and draw some things that are meaningful to us for around 20-30 minutes, and then of course at the end we would show everyone our work and just celebrate it. This would be done all in the same room, so that everyone can know what to do and if they had a question they could’ve asked any one of the Sinhala speakers what to do. However the service leaders decided to make some breakout rooms in which we would have two RCCI members, one non-Sinhala speaker and one Sinhala speaker. This would be to ensure everyone was engaged. And then of course each RCCI kid would be in a room. This would have worked had the RCCI kids have a support teacher nearby to visually aid them into what we have to do. However a lot of the teachers there had put the kids in the zoom call and left the room or something of the sort, so it was a lot harder to communicate with the kids. Hence as a solution we closed the breakout rooms and resumed with the original plan. After that we started drawing and sharing and the meeting ended at around 4:30pm.
After thinking about it for a few days, I think the meeting went mostly as expected, of course there were some difficulties however that is why we tried to plan and be organized, in order to be ready for any difficulties we may face later. I enjoyed the meeting and that at least one our ideas that we planned out was able to be executed. I think something that really was put into perspective for me was the language barrier. At my previous service I was aware of this language barrier and I faced some difficulties with it, but it was very possible to workout around said barrier using chess as a medium. However at RCCI its very hard to communicate with the children given this language barrier. Hence I hope to find some better ways to communicate with them online for the time being.
Learning Outcomes Achieved:
LO3 – This was a very big day for the RCCI service group as we had to plan out the whole lesson, from what we had to how to approach the RCCI foundation and find a suitable time for this to occur. As the DP2’s had to study for their finals, it was mainly organized by the DP1’s. Hence it was a bit more difficult than imagined however it was very worth it as it was a valuable experience.
LO4 – Like mentioned in the previous posts, this relates to service which is one of my long-term goals, hence working more on service directly relates to me being able to accomplish my DP 1 CAS goals. Being committed to this service group means a lot to me, as it is something I really do think makes a big difference, and is something that is for a good cause.
LO5 – In this short art exhibition session, we can see that there was collaborative effort placed in by a lot of the members of RCCI. Another form of collaboration was working with the teachers at the RCCI foundation and being able to set time so that all of us can come together for this small event (on zoom). I saw the benefits of putting in this collaborative effort as it would have been hard to send emails, plan, and execute all of this alone. Skills such as planning, and communicating both with the teachers and the students was required (through speaking Sinhala).
