The most difficult service year for me in OSC has come to an end. Enrolling in a completely new service group that relies on interaction with other people, during a pandemic was very challenging at times. My long time service group, checkmates, was cancelled due to the pandemic. I then joined RCCI, a service group which for many years has had students from the Rehabilitation center for the Communication Impaired. As we could not physically meet with the students, we first had to plan activities for when we were eventually allowed to welcome them back onto campus. As the year went on, it became increasingly clear that that was not going to happen, so we had to plan for other things.

We arranged a virtual art session for the students, which we conducted over zoom. This was extremely successful, as we were able to both interact with and help the students via video call.

Our final big project of the year was a fundraiser for a young boy named Udeera Rathnayaka. Udeera lives very close by to our service teacher, Mrs. Manushi, who got to hear about his story. He has neurological disabilities, and is family is from that of a low socio economic background. We wanted to do a fundraiser, in order to raise money for his education, as his family is unable to afford it.

LO6 Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance

Anish, Kaalep, Lithira, George and I put together a poster, and I then set out an email to ensure that the poster was put it in the OSC newsletter. This is in order to encourage members of the school community to donate to this worthy cause. Because all of us were working on the poster, we were able to finish it on the Thursday that we had service, and send the email in time so that it made the next day’s newsletter.

LO5 Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

We hope that many members of the OSC community are able to donate, in order to fund Udeera’s education.

The entire year in RCCI has been a real learning experience. The most important thing I had to navigate was the difficulty in putting together a fundraiser online. Typically, service groups do fundraisers by selling things such as cookies, or t shirts at school, and raise money that way. Our initial plan was to sell t shirts on campus, but we had to look for alternatives when we got put back in online school. Our only option was to give bank account details, and leave an address for members of the community to stop by and deposit some money into the account, of which all of the funds will go to Udeera’s family for the purpose of funding his education. We know that it is much harder to raise funds without a product to sell, and during online school, but there was really no other option other than what we did. The entire year was a good learning experience, and I hope for the fundraiser to be successful so that Udeera can get the education that he needs.

Personally, it felt different to lose the leadership role that I was in during checkmates. Although Virath was the leader last year, a few of us that had been in the service group for many years functioned well as a leadership group. With RCCI however, there were four seniors who led us through the year. After they graduated however, it was up to the 5 remaining DP1’s to all work together. I think that we could have done a better job at getting everything done, but I am pleased that we were able to launch the donation campaign for Udeera.

LO1 Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

LO2 Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process