Girls for Girls service:
For this years girls for girls service, we are planning activities online due to the covid-19. We are raising awerness against sexual abuse within school and over social media platfrom. We try to also promote topics such as women empowerment, fundraisers for our service and some inspirational women around the world. I am specifically responsible for managing the instagram account for our service, so my goal for this year is to be able to keep the girls for girls instagram account active, post inspirational posts, promote our service and raise more awareness on sexual harassment. Once the school starts, I plan on meeting the girls and being able to talk to them and try to help them be heard by the society.
Learning Outcomes:
- Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
- Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
- Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
- Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
- Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
- Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
- Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
1) Strength & Growth:
Even though the general theme of the service “Girls for Girls” is to help girls in Sri-lanka who have been a victim of sexual assault and abuse, it is also about women empowerment locally and globally. As I have been involved with many activities involved with women empowerment such as protests, started a service in my previous school to work with an all girls school in Bangladesh and helped fund them. With “girls for girls” service I think I can grow and explore a topic I am passionate in and have ideas and strengths to bring to this service.
2) Challenge & Skills:
The challenge that we are facing as a service group right now is the Covid-19 cases in Sri-Lanka which is the reason why we can not meet the girls face to face. This creates a challenge for us, as our essential goal is to talk and give voice to the girls who have been victims of sexual abuse, but we can not meet them, which defeats our main purpose. As we undertook this challenge we have slowly started coming up with alternative solutions, such as;
– Talking to the girls over zoom
– Giving the victims a voice over social media and other platfroms
– Encouraging/promoting women empowerment in OSC community
– Fundraisers for “Girls for Girls”
3) Initiative & Planning
Personally, I will not be initiating or leading the service, however I will contribute to the plans and activities that are led by this service. I have contributed to the developments of plans and initiated ideas during our zoom meetings and lead some aspects of this service.
4) Commitment & Perseverance
This service will show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences as it is a service that goes on for a whole school year and even within the service we are assigned roles that we have to commit to. My responsibility for this year is to manage the instagram account and be persistent with the promotion of our service, empowering quotes, and awerness on sexual abuse. Even though it is challenging to keep up with a service online, showing perseverance and commitment towards my responsibilities and the service will help me grow along with proving my commitment and perseverance in my CAS experiences.
5) Collaborative Skills
For the service “Girls for girls” we have 10 students, 3 of them being the leaders, which we all work collaboratively to run the service activities together. This is an important skill for me (and the other participants) to learn as our collaborative work changes the lives of these girls and help us achieve a good cause. By working as an individual the amount work we have done would have not been possible so the demonstration of the the skills and recognizing the benefits of working collaboratively is a big part of this service.
6) Global Engagement
This service helps me engage with issues of global significance, as sexual assault and abuse is experienced by many women around the world and needs a call for action. It also helps me be internationally engaged and open minded, as I get to learn about this issue specifically in Sri-Lanka and try to transfer my knowledge and educate people within my community about this issue.
7) Ethics of Choices & Actions
As a female I feel that I need to help fellow women who are in need of help, who need to talk, and need a voice to be heard. Choosing to do this service was an ethical choice for me as I feel responsible to help these girls in need and recognize/consider the ethics of choices and actions.