As the pandemic is still going on, there is still the use of the COVID-19 rules of social distancing from one another. Following the rules of social distancing has been a tough act to do as it has made attending and contributing to the Housing & Habitat service group.

It is challenging to follow these rules, especially for Housing & Habitat because the main part of our service is being hands-on activity. As we would be dismantling wood pallets and building chairs or tables from these pallets, however, because of the rule of social distancing it has resulted in us finding activities or projects to brainstorm for the future of Housing & Habitat.

We have been working on creating.

• blurb for yearbook
• goals that are possible online:
  • for the social media group
  • contacting Mr. Gamage Janoda Foundation
  • getting more pallets for next year
  • plan the routes for homerun for maybe this year or next year

However, because when contacting Mr. Gamage from Janoda Foundation and not getting a response from him, we had to try to look at other old contacts we had in the previous years of Housing & Habitat. From the old contacts, we found one group or organization that has similar values and goals to our service group, so we had decided to contact them to see if we could somehow work together. We acquired their contacts through the help of Mr. Lockwood and then we were able to schedule a zoom meeting on Thursday during the mock exams.

On the zoom meeting day, we were able to meet one of the administrators for Habitat for Humanity in Sri Lanka, Melissa Jayasuriya, as well as one of her colleagues. During the meeting, we discussed the potential ways in which the Housing & Habitat service group and Habitat for Humanity work together.

During the zoom meeting with the Habitat for Humanity administrators, we were given further detail on their project; the “Brick by Brick” project. After Ms. Jayasuriya had explained the project and its purpose, our service group started to discuss plans that we could possibly do to be able to help assist the Habitat for Humanity organization in order to achieve this project of theirs. “Brick by Brick” is a project where Habitat for Humanity uses the money raised from donations to build homes for low-income families, through the donation they need 350,000 LKR to be able to build one house for the families. So, our service group hopes to be able to help and assist Habitat for Humanity through the potential plans of raising a donation but not on a large scale as COVID-19 has made it difficult for us to do so.