Service Update, Reflection & 2024 Goals🧁

Service Update, Reflection & 2024 Goals

Okay so I was looking at my CAS blog and realized that a lot of it has been about football (my activity), and I have not given a service update in … well since the first post. Since 2023, and the first semester of school is coming to an end, I think it is a good time to write a service reflection, update, as well as goals for the next semester. 

Let’s start off simple, a service update: 

Like I mentioned in my last post, we have an instagram page, which we try to update frequently. That has been a challenge, because making posts actually takes way longer than I initially thought, and because I’m the main person working on them, as well as trying to manage the service group, it is hard to keep up with the “one post a week” dream. Nevertheless, I frequently post on the accounts’ instagram story, with includes book of the week, any news related to sexism, gender inequality and/or women empowerment and inspiring quotes. Our second post was about beauty standards set upon women and girls within society. We always start a post off with a very provocative statement, which is a way to hopefully increase engagement. This time the statement was, “a woman’s worth is defined by her beauty”. The post explains the “feminine beauty ideal”, and how the media, society and males have more influence on that than women themselves. We also explore this idea of body image, and the potential negative effects it has on womens, as well as men’s mental health. There is a lot in the post, so check it out HERE! 

Moreover, other than the media aspect of it all, we also organized a bake sale, and it went amazingly well. We had a variety of baked goods, varying from cinnamon rolls, to cupcakes, to cookies, to banana bread to brownies. Everyone in the service contributed and I was very proud of everyone. I brought cupcakes, and I would love to take the credit and say I baked them myself, but there is a reason for the fact that baking is not the creative aspect of my CAS program… I guess what I’m trying to say is that baking has unfortunately never been my strength, so my mum prepared the cupcakes instead. Not only did they taste amazing, but they also looked incredible! I know my mum can cook and bake, but she really outdid herself this time, people thought the cupcakes were bought, that’s how good they looked! And the taste… don’t even get me started! Anyways, you get the point, my mum is pretty amazing. The bake sale overall was also extremely successful and we sold every single baked good. We sold during both primary and secondary lunch time just so we could sell everything, and if there is one thing primary students love, it’s sweets. So, we raised a total of (approx) 57,000 RS, which is 175 USD!! I did not believe the girls that did the calculations, so I did them myself just to double check, and they were right. 57,000. I’m so happy with this very positive end to the service semester, and this money is going to allow us to firstly invest in some personal service goals, sanitary items for the bathrooms, and of course donations for women’s shelters (I will talk more about that later on). 

Finally, I also wanted to just point out that we updated the sanitary boxes in the bathrooms. Unfortunately, the cardboard boxes were getting very wet, and even sadder, thrashed by girls in the bathrooms. I was extremely disappointed when I heard this, as we put a lot of work into providing the women of the OSC community with emergency sanitary napkins, but this was disregarded by many. The products should also be for emergencies only, but people are really stoking up on them and taking more than just one at the time, which results in the products being empty after just 2 days! We made a poster for the bathrooms, hoping that people will respect the boxes and our service more. Furthemore, the boxes are now made out of wood, which looks way better and more professional. 

Reflection & Goals

This semester in service turned out to be pretty good. We definitely faced a number of challenges, but ended the semester on a high note. As a service leader it is difficult to satisfy everybody, and there are times where I need to make some tough decisions. I’m learning a lot, especially working alongside middle schoolers, they live in a world of their own, and I now definitely have a new found respect for teachers teaching middle schoolers. For the next semester we already have a solid plan of what we want to do. As SAISA girls football is hosted here, in Colombo, we see this as a great opportunity to sell some J&E merchandise to people outside of the OSC community. I’ve been to a lot of SAISA’s before, and trust me, athletes love to get rid of random change, as well as having souvenirs from the school they go to. At first we thought t-shirts were the way to go, however, everybody does that. Thus, we wanted to change it up a bit. We are deciding to make tote bags, and shoutout to Vicky, because she did an amazing job in designing them. Once we get back to school after the break, we will immediately start on them. We also decided to get t-shirts, but not to sell, just for the people in our service to have. Finally, Emerge Lanka, a women’s organization, is open to working with OSC again. Thich is great news as this means we might finally get to work with these women again. If not, I have also been given some other contacts that we can work with. Also, our next post will be on the menstural cycle!

In other words, service is actually looking pretty good and I think we can really do something in the coming year.