Unfortunately due to Corona virus measures I was unable to continue my participation to the CheckMates service group. I have been active in this service group for the past 3 years and I helped lead it for the past year.  However before making the decision that would stop this service for the fore-coming future I had to analyze the pros and cons of the situations and how we could possibly adapt because of the current situation we are in. I did this as I was sent an email asking whether it would be possible for us to continue this service group online or just in a way which would work. I did want to continue this service as it is a group that I have been dedicated to and a lot of us have put in a lot of time and effort these past 3 years and have made tremendous improvements with the batch of kids we have taught. Not only have we seen them grown as chess players but we have made them feel comfortable in their surroundings and actually enjoy their time with us. This service did not seem like a community service and I think the majority of us can agree we loved doing this as we very much enjoyed the company of the children we taught and the experiences we have had these past years.

However we still had to make a decision on how to continue this service and whether we should at all. I believed that our service requires us to have interaction with the kids at local schools. I do not think they will have access to zoom calls so I doubt we can do anything until the COVID situation is resolved. A lot of our teaching methods also require physical interactions so it might be difficult even if they had zoom to get over the language barrier. The only suggestion I could make is that the service group either changes the children we are teaching chess or we use this time to have fundraisers or prepare for next year. Both of these options seemed out of the question and not plausible at all because of the circumstances and how difficult it would be to go through with them. Planning for next year would seem like a waste and unproductive so after a brief talk with some of our past members we decided to stop for the best. Overall I doubted that we can continue virtually just because of the context we are living in and the goal of the service itself.

As I no longer had this group to compensate for the service aspect of my CAS I had to think of a different way to do this. Not only did I sign up for 3 new services which I will do online but I will also my own form of service for a family member. My cousin Zein is a 6th grader who goes to the same school as I do. I hope to tutor him in multiple subjects primarily Maths and L&L. My plan for this service is to go every week on Saturday and Wednesday for 1 hour and tutor him on a subject which he requires more tutoring in. The content will change depending on his needs however my schedule will not. I hope to start tutoring him as soon as the curfew is withheld. I have already found a supervisor in Ms.Chandler who is the Math teacher in our school. She is perfect for this as not only is she my math teacher but she also teaches Zein making it easier for me to know the content which I need to teach. I look forward to starting this service aspect of my CAS experience and hopefully I will begin in the upcoming week.