On the 25th of March, the RCCI Service Group decided to take action and collaborate with our RCCI members. It has been a while that we’ve spent online zoom sessions planning ahead for face to face service on Thursdays, however it seemed as though it would take a while for the RCCI members and OSC service members to all be able  to  be  on  campus. As  a group,  we  contacted  the  RCCI head  in  order  to  plan  an online zoom session.

We knew that this would be a challenge, firstly because we were unsure about who would have wifi connections, access to computers and spaces to attend the online session; this is because the RCCI members were also not on their own campus, and this would mean that everyone would connect from their own homes. The next issue was the language barrier, it was already a challenge on campus for us to communicate with them, and we all resulted to using body language, or diverted to playing contact games if we were stuck making conversation. The service members decided to designate Sinhala speaking students for each breakout room we would make, however this also proved to be a challenge as some were more fluent speakers than others.

Through these multiple challenges, the zoom call was still overall a success. We managed to work collaboratively and persevere through the language barriers, wifi issues and ensuring loads of fun for everyone! The reason as to why it was able to become a success was our planning; since we did have a face to face service session the previous week between the DP1 and DP2 students. We had organized groups and activities; we planned to create artworks to keep everyone engaged, and have everyone hold their own works up at the end.

The screenshot above displays the end of our call, where everyone put up their artworks to their camera with a big smile! We were aware that this was not easy for the RCCI members nor for the OSC students, it was the first time we all met online, and we were all able to develop our communication skills, collaboration skills, and overcome all the challenges we faced.