Every Thursday at OSC is reserved for Service activities. All the students engage in a service conducted by the school. There are 8 service groups that get together every week and work to either support little kids or recycle waste at school or teach kids to swim or support troubled girls etc. Currently, I am a member of the Girls for Girls service group. Ten girls of grades 8-12 work together with our leader Savindi Jayasuriya of DP 2 to support a group of sexually abused girls. We coordinate with The Emerge Lanka Foundation in Colombo.

Last week the Foundation held the graduation ceremony of the Girls’ from the Batch 08. It was a really emotional function as 10 girls who were residing in the center for 3 months left for new employments in society. At the ceremony, the girls displayed their talents in dancing, singing, acting and defense skills. These girls have been working with us for more than 2 months and we’ve got a lot of memories with them. It was so sad to know that maybe we would never get to meet them again. I was so happy that I was able to be a part of this special day.

During the past three months at the center, the girls have learnt academics, dancing, music, art, defense skills, computer skills and so many other social and practical skills that we’ve been struggling out whole life to get a hold of. They came from different provinces in the country but they became one family at the center. They received the love and protection from the people at Emerge. It was so lovely to hear the girls addressing the ladies at Emerge by “Amma”.

These girls have survived sexual abuse and they are much stronger than anyone of us can imagine. So I would like to wish them luck for their future and hope that we would get to see them someday in the future.

A photo taken outside the hall where the graduation ceremony was held of some of the members of the service group “Girls for Girls”.