International Women’s Day is a global holiday celebrated annually on March 8th to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women. This year, our service group decided to celebrate the entire week as International Women’s Week. I really wanted to have a meaningful and eventful celebratory week, to raise awareness around the school, involve a wide range of grade levels, parents and teachers, and create a positive environment in support of women globally.
As my last year as Service leader of Girls for Girls (G4G), I wanted to have a meaningful activity everyday. We decided to include a combination of fundraisers, campaigns, activities and protests.
In preparation for the week, we created many posters, ribbons and signs. We also coordinated with different teachers to book spaces for our activities, and designed posters to publicise the event which were posted in the daily bulletin and newsletter. We decided to host an art competition for the primary school, inviting all students to submit an entry of a poem, song, artwork etc, demonstrating support towards a women in their life. Jaya and I spoke to the primary school at a morning assembly to announce the event, and an art competition we were holding, and I spoke to the Emerge Lanka foundation to communicate our initiatives and goals of the week. I also was in constant communication with the media team at OSC, and Mr Jehan (head of Marketing in OSC) to post updates on our progress through the different activities, and share images of the events.
Monday kicked off with our positivity walls and pink pins – a successful way to bring awareness to the week and encourage the community to spread supportive messages. We handcrafted the pink ribbons which I distributed at the entrance before school. Creating the ribbons was a collaborative process both within service and at home. Since we had to make many, I took home a roll of ribbon and worked with my family to create around 100 more.
On Monday night, I realised that the jewellery sale I had planned and organised, would have to be cancelled. The organisation we work with, Emerge Lanka, informed us they were unable to provide jewellery for the sale. However, I did not want to simply cancel the activity, without having a replacement one. On Monday night, I had the idea of having a card-making station for both primary and secondary students, to encourage members of the community to write a card of appreciation to a female role model in their life. I felt this would both raise awareness, and create a supporting environment which appreciates the women in our day to day lives.
This card station turned out to be a huge success. I collected the supplies from Ms Dahlan’s room, and set up different stations of the card-making process in the canteen. I lead the session during the primary lunchtime, and students were so excited to make cards for their friends and loved ones. I was also pleasantly surprised, when many of the younger kids made cards for me! My fellow G4G members then took over for secondary lunch. We received a lot of positive feedback around this initiative, and I was really glad to see my idea receive so much love.
On Day 3 (Wednesday), we held our protest in support of women’s empowerment and gender equality. We organised a series of posters, which Ms Dahlan helped us print. The Grade 5 students mounted the papers onto cardboard, and we distributed the posters during break time. We were able to have a large crowd come together holding the posters, and took a group photo. This created awareness within the school, and was also used on our media pages to show support towards the cause. Going forward, I hope to write and publish an article regarding women’s empowerment in Sri Lanka, and thus I will use this image to demonstrate the impact of a supportive community.
Thursday was a huge success. We hosted a bake sale! We wanted to have custom designs on the cookies we sold, so we designed two types : a dark pink cookie with a light pink women’s sex symbol, and a light pink cookie with a dark pink symbol. Priced at Rs. 200 each, we sold the cookies at primary and secondary lunchtimes, earning over 30,000 rupees! After compensating the cost we spent on buying the cookies, we are now able to donate a 25,000 rupee sum to the Emerge Lanka Foundation in support of the girls, and improving the shelter facilities. During our service session, we also decided on the winners of the art competition, choosing 1 winner from Grade 1 + 2, 1 winner from Grade 3, 1 from Grade 4, and 1 from Grade 5 (total 4 winners).
On our final day of a week full of celebrations, we conducted a self-defence class, and encouraged all school members to wear pink in support of women’s empowerment and gender equality. We organised a Brazilian Jiu – Jitsu teacher to host a self-defence session after school, which was a huge success, and many community members wore pink in support of the cause! We announced the art competition winners at the assembly, handing out prizes wrapped by Ms Dahlan. We also displayed all of the primary artwork around school, to share their amazing work!
The week was a huge success, and we received a lot of positive feedback. I hope that going forward, the service group will continue to celebrate this special week. Although I can no longer participate in the G4G group officially, I will continue to work with Emerge Lanka, and work towards the cause of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.
LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience – Students can articulate the stages from conceiving an idea to executing a plan for a CAS experience or series of CAS experiences. This may be accomplished in collaboration with other participants. Students may show their knowledge and awareness by building on a previous experience, or by launching a new idea or process.
LO4 : Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences – Students demonstrate regular involvement and active engagement in CAS.
LO5 :Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively – Students are able to identify, demonstrate and critically discuss the benefits and challenges of collaboration gained through CAS experiences.
LO6 : Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance – Students are able to identify and demonstrate their understanding of global issues, make responsible decisions, and take appropriate action in response to the issue either locally, nationally or internationally.
LO7 : Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions – Students show awareness of the consequences of choices and actions in planning and carrying out CAS experiences.