As we get back in person for school, service opportunities are more frequently arising. This past semester, Room To Read has already started raising funds and distributing stationary within the local community. Despite not having formal service after school sessions and sign ups, our supervisor Ms. Lockwood and partner serive leader (Liam Modder) have taken action to aid our partner schools in their up recent re-openings.
The first and most recently completed task has been a stationary distribution to allow for an easier reopening of schools in Sri Lanka. The issue of lack of stationary was brought to us by our partner – Mr. Mahinda- who realized the need for supplies in his local area. I sent out emails to the school community in preparation to distribute supplies such as pencils and notebooks, of which would be collected from Ms. Lockwood who had permission to be in school. Using this, supplies were purchased from a local supermarket so each student would have the same necessary items. Each student’s stationery package cost 950 to 1000 LKR each, therefore we requested donations starting at LKR 1000 to include the cost of a paper bag to pack the stationary. We were able to deliver 69 stationary packs to school children in Isurugama, Parambe, and Wadumula villages in the Kogalle district.
Stationary Packs, Photo taken by Ms. Lockwood
The receipt for one stationary pack
Students in Kegalle recieveing their stationary packs
Alongside the stationary, we contacted the Vidyaloka Vidyalaya partner school to see if we could help them with their needs. Some of the teachers and their families from the OSC community visited he school to clean it up, including the classrooms, outdoor area, and toilets. One of our community members helped to repair the seesaws in the school’s play area by replacing the rusted metal settings with new wooden seatings. In addition to this, we donated 60 chairs from OSC that were not in use, to provide seating for the students. 5 Chromebooks were donated to increase access to educational documents and learning support.
Most recently, Liam and I sent out an email to CBL in Sri Lanka with the intention of gaining a corporate partnership. We described all the previous work we have done with the school and our previous partner schools, as well as explained out future goals. As it came to our attention that the CBL focuses on caring for the local community as expressed in their mission statement, we thought it best to reach out to this company for a potential partnership. The CBL (Ceylon Biscuits Limited) group focuses on selling biscuits with high nutritional value to help the community. Within our email, we discussed our desire for a corporate sponsorship which could provide us with any resources they have available, wether it be their products or monetary support. This was especially fitting as our partner school is looking to implement a mid day meal program, which could be supported with biscuit donations from the CBL company. As for funds, we expressed our concern with the infrastructure of the school, hoping to receive any available donations to help restore the sinking roof. Reaching out to this potential corporate partner would greatly benefit the students of the school that come from impoverished backgrounds, improving their well being and quality of education.
Looking forward, we hope to hear back from this corporate sponsor to discuss more about our service and the ways in which they could help. Additionally, we are aiming to extend our collaboration with the Vidyaloka Vidyalaya school to teach their students english in order to build a stronger relationship with the school.
Learning Outcomes:
Throughout this CAS service experience, I have demonstrated initiative and planning as I have planned ahead for my service, making sure to continue developing our goals to maximize our potential support for our partner schools. I feel as though this is demonstrated by Room To Read’s flexibility in our goal, as we have not only limited ourselves to dealing with books and libraries in local schools. We have conformed to the needs of the school, which in turn will allow us to accomplish our goal by helping local schools in Sri Lanka to have access to books and education. I have also demonstrated commitment and perseverance, maintaining my support for this service through consistent fundraisers and developed goals. Additionally, I have shown collaborative skills by not only working with our service supervisor and my co leader, but also striving to collaborate with members outside of the OSC community. By reaching out to a potential corporate sponsor, I have directly address developing collaborative skills, understanding the importance of working with others and asking for help. Finally, I have demonstrated global engagement, striving to have an impact outside of the OSC community. This is evident from our stationary drive, as we reached out further than our partner school to provide students in Kegalle with stationary for school re-opening.