Sunflower Swimming

The children have not come for two weeks now and during this time we planned and innitiated the process of putting on a lockin to raise money for the village. Its going to be some time in march and involve fund raising activities.

WWW Reflection

Hambantota Trip

this week we spent 5 days down in Hambantota and completed three days of service in local schools. our goal was to improve the aesthetics of the school by painting.

At the begninning of the week we set our goals:

1. To complete the painting of the grills



2. To complete the painting of the walls.
   
   
3. To interact with children on a daily basis by doing fun activities every morning before we start work.


4. To improve the playgrounds.
   

DAY 1

Today was spent mostly travelling but we breaked on the way for lunch and finally in Uduwalawe National Park for an elephant safari. For me this was an extremely new and valuable experience. As expected we mainly saw elephants but we saw other wildlife such as peacocks, monkeys, eagles, turtles and tourists. Our surroundings was like stepping into a completely different counrtry. We arrived at the Peacock Beach Hotel late in the evening where we reflected on our experience and planned for the following day our first day of service.

DAY 2

We began the day with the kids welcoming us to the school with a small parade. They were much much smaller than i expected. We then went into the school house and played with children, today the activity we planned and initiated was oil pastel drawings. Again as with all community service projects here for me, language was an issue but as always with a few strange noises intended to make them laugh and the sticking out of tongues once your laughing together communication doesnt seem to matter as much. Once we had played with them for and hour or so it was time to begin with the painting..

This was a valubale experience in terms of learning that if you set yourself a goal and you know that it has to be done you WILL achieve it no matter how many hours or skipped lunches it takes. We worked predominantly on the walls on the first day painting them a light yellow, i was not really too happ initially as they seemed to be worse than before, boring and plain. But that is where Grade 11s innitiative came in we continued to paint and planned to leave time for a mural inside as well as outside. i think we finished most of the walls on the first day but we still had A LOT to do.

DAY 3

After the previous night's reflection i think

we all realised exactly how much work we were going to have to accomplish. I dont think anyone took much of a break the whole time we were there, we did become "painting machines". But before we became robots we enjoyed another hour interacting with the children. Today we made collages of glitter and old magazines, most of the children's mothers joined in and helped which showed the spirit and their appreciation of our project.

Today i painted a second coat on the walls and helped the group who were still painting the never ending wire mesh. I also painted the blackboard, and the skirting board. today was the day we basically painted and painted and painted and painted untill every wall seemed to have been coated. We spent time in the afternoon painting flowers on the wall after talking with the teachers of the school about how they wanted to keep a bit of life in the class rooms. today our Collaboration was put to the test, we worked as a team to finish everything as best we could, i think i painted floors, skirting, wire mesh, and desks most of the day. We accomplished A LOT that day, and left with paint speckeld faces and very sore backs.

Our reflection that evening was one of immense pride and realisation that we could spend tomoro touching up and adding things like balloons and posters to their classrooms before the final concert.

DAY 4

Today we did the final touches and then enjoyed a concert with the children. we sang nursery rhymes to them, did the hokie kokie and were then blown away by their acts. They performed songs and dances and were all extremely proud of themselves. After presenting them with our gifts the teacher and parents thanked us for our hard work and invited us for one last session of playtime in the playground.

DAY 5

As we travelled back we all refelcted on the trip, what we felt most was a sense of acheivement the task at first seemed enourmous but with hard work and effort we ahcieved our goals.

SGA The Oscars....

This was the biggest challenge that SGA has faced. It was through the process of creating this event that more than one learning outcomes were achieved:

1. I increased my awareness of my areas of strength and began to appreciate areas about myself which need growth and improvment.
2. I undertook a new challenge.
3. I worked collaboratively with others.

The process began a week before the winter holiday, the SGA meeting brainstormed ideas about themes, catering, decorations, the awards and venue. At first our dreams were maybe a little too large.. and we had to downsize some of our ideas to make them a little more managable. For example we had ideas of hosting it on the field under a canopy but we realised we had neither the funds nor the manpower to pull of such ideas. After some careful thought and concideration we decided to follow last years example yet decided on three things we wanted to drastically improve. These were firstly the quality of the food, secondly the quality of the entertainment and lastly the publicising of the event.

In order to create an evening where all of these things are noticably improved we first had to select a theme through which we could guide the key elements. Food Entertainment (awards) and the night itself. Collectively the SGA decided on the idea of CASINO ROYALE, a night of Casino Glamour. We then had to try and unite all the different aspects though this theme, of cards, black, red and silver. We also planned for a magician to add to the theme. It was this section that involved the undertaking of new challenges.

I was incharge of ordering the table chairs and food. I had to meet with the manager of the bayleaf regularly and it was through this that i discovered an area about myself that i need to improve. My ability to keep organised and updated when i have to meet regularly and discuss things like money. Communicating it back exactly was difficult. I had to remember to keep things like post-it-notes during the meeting so i could remember.

As the OSCARS got closer our stress levels went UP up and away. But working together we managed to stay in school saturday and get everything ready, it all seemed to fall into place. We succesfully planned and initiated an activity of our own.