This was my fourth semester in the Hope for Kids Service, and I can say that it surely remains the same amount of fun as when I joined. As this was my first semester being service leader, many things were new to me which, despite demanding a lot more work, made service even more interesting. We had lots of fun activities with the children, gave them Christmas presents, and above all, were involved in the global issue of cancer. Although we are not directly addressing cancer, by interacting creatively with the children I believe we make their time at the hospital a bit more bearable while they go through this terrible disease.

Some of the activities we did were making sock puppets, arm bands and cup crafts. Throughout these activities, I was reminded of how tough the cancer treatment is. The children were very weak and sometimes not motivated to do anything, although often they had fun by being creative. As I was service leader, all of these activities had to be planned, materials bought, or ensured that the materials were already available in the box in which we keep all the stationary and other equipment we use for the sessions. Fortunately, one of my classmates, Seth, was also service leader, so he was responsible for communicating with the hospital and organizing transport. By splitting work and responsibilities this way, we could organize sessions more efficiently.

The last three sessions were spent buying, wrapping, and taking Christmas presents to the families at the hospital. Before this we called the hospital to know how many children there were, and of what age groups. Following this, we went to a nearby children’s store and bought toys for the children appropriate to their ages. The next session, we used newspapers to wrap the presents, decorating them a bit to make them more attractive. The last session was spent at the hospital distributing the gifts. It was moving to see the conditions in which the children live, the rooms rather similar to prison cells, and I felt really sorry for the people who had to go through this. However, the gesture of giving presents was appreciated by the children, and I learned some new Sinhala on the day, “suba nathalak wewa”, which means merry Christmas.

Overall, my first semester as service leader went very well. There were times were planning was a bit difficult, but overall everything ran smoothly and I think this is a good opportunity for me to build my communication and leadership skills. I am looking forward to planning and conducting the next semester’s sessions, as they will be my last service sessions and I intend to make the most of it.