Final Reflection

Participating in the Overseas School of Colombo's Creativity, Action, and Service activities has been an extremely rewarding experience. Each activity taught me lessons in the areas of cooperation, leadership, and world issues. Below I will reflect on how each individual has aided my skill and personal development.

Rehabilitation Center for the Communication Impaired

Leading this activity allowed me to increase my awareness of my areas of strength and areas for growth. I learned that I was a responsible and respectful leader. I was always sensitive towards the children's disabilities and ensured that all group members were treated with care and respect through sessions. I learned that I could still improve as a leader by becoming more patient with fellow students. The following image is my favorite from the past two years with RCCI. It is a picture from when we danced with the children to Michael Jackson music!

Community Concern Society

Being a part of Community Concern Society has by far been one of my greatest accomplishments in Sri Lanka. As a member of this organization I dealt with an issue of global importance : poverty. I aided women, struggling to support and feed their families. I created a special connection with both the women and their children. This experience will forever be a part of me. I showed perseverance and my commitment to this service group by creating my own project and bringing it to my school.
I educated the OSC students on Community Concern's goals and objectives. I later raised about 100 kilograms of rice and 60 kilograms of dahl .The picture below is of my favorite child from the program.

 Helping Hands

Each week in this activity I planned and initiated English lessons. While leading this activity I developed a variety of new skills. I believe that the most important skill I learned was how to be a confident leader. During my first few sessions I felt shy speaking in front of all the students; however, by the final session I was extremely comfortable leading a group. On multiple occasions I planned activities which required me to sing and dance in front of the class. I believe this skill of being a confident leader will aid me throughout life as I lead classes and hopefully one day a business.The following image is from a Helping Hands session in which the students had to create their own version of head-shoulders-knees-and-toes. This specific moment, dancing and singing with the children is one of the happiest I have had in Sri Lanka.

SAISA Soccer and Basketball

As an Overseas School of Colombo student and athlete, I participated in both soccer and basketball SAISA tournaments. In year 11, I traveled to Bangladesh for basketball and Nepal for soccer. In year 12, OSC hosted the basketball tournament. Each team taught me to work collaboratively with others and to undertake new challenges. The OSC basketball team won the tournament both years in a row. In grade 12 I undertook the challenge of playing the entire final game. Due to the heat and high intensity of the game, it was extremely difficult to force myself to continue playing for the entire game; however, I persevered. The picture below was taken at half time at the championship game against Dhaka.


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Overall, I believe that I achieved all the goals I had set at the beginning of my CAS experience. I have participated in each activity which I hoped to be a part of. But more importantly, I have developed into a well rounded global citizen and formed memories which I will forever cherish.

Helping Hands

This week in Helping Hands we introduced the children to our new student leaders. Elizabeth and Sasha, responsible 11th grade students, will be the official new student leaders in a few weeks when I begin my exams. This week they simply served as spectators, as they began to learn the ropes of being a helping hands teacher.

I planned and initiated a lesson which continued the topic of animals. I taught the class the song  Old Mcdonald Had A Farm. It was a challenge at first to get the kids to sing along and learn the lyrics, but eventually it came together. The following is a picture of Sasha sitting with some of the children.

Later, the class did a relay race to solidify their understanding of animals. The kids were asked to run to the end of the field and yell out the names of each animal picture. This activity was beneficial in the development of speaking skills. The following is a picture of the children running in the relay race with big smiles across their faces!