Final visit to the Alzheimer's center for this year.

Yesterday the Alzheimer's Group made a very special visit to the Alzheimer's center to round up the year of 2011.

This visit was different to others because of 2 main reasons:
- The purpose of the visit was to drop off the dry food items that our school community had donated during the past few weeks. This is the first fund raising activity that was planned, organized and initiated completely by ourselves, without any help from the foundation it self. By the end of it we managed to collect around 10kg of rice, 10kg of flour, 5kg of milk powder, 5kg of dhal and several jars of Sri Lankan style pickled chutney.

- In addition to this, we also got to actually meet and interact with the patients yesterday! This was a great experience, and our group members instantly engaged with them. We look forward to making more frequent visits to the center next year to ensure this happens more often.

Raising Donations for Alzheimer's

For the few weeks our group has been focusing on raising donations for the newly established Alzheimer's center. As they are still in the initial stages, the Foundation greatly appreciates any help given from volunteers.

On behalf of the Overseas School of Colombo, the Alzheimer's group decided to invite the school community to donate dry food items such as Rice, Flour, Dhal, etc, to be used for the purpose of the daily meal that is provided for the patients.

Heesoo and I have been very busy these days trying to get everything organized, and we have largely concentrated our meetings on spreading the word to the school community, as well as actually collecting the items.

Our strategy for raising awareness included sending an email to the school principle in order to gain permission, announcing the activity in assembly after this, emailing parents of the secondary school, and finally emailing the students to remind and reiterate the point.

This process has greatly improved our formal letter writing, and also our persuasive and informative skills.

In addition to the donation of food items, we have also been focusing on acquiring board games which can be used during the leisure/entertainment time by the patients. We appealed to the Primary School teachers about this, and got very good responses.

Heesoo and I are very proud of what we have been able to achieve through these meaningful activities, and have been getting a lot of positive comments from many teachers in our school about this year's Alzheimer's Service being a lot more active than previous years. That, more than anything, means a lot to us, and make us feel like we're actually doing a good job as leaders :)

Alzheimer's presentation during assembly

Yesterday during assembly Heesoo and I made a presentation about the Memory Box activity that we're planning.Additionally, we also appealed to the school community about donating dry food items to the centre, and the primary school about donating board games for the purpose of the entertainment of the patients.

The assembly announcement required quick adaptation, as the person who was supposed to give the presentation was not able to come to school, which required Heesoo and I to stand up to the challenge on such short notice. (hence I may have sounded like I wanted to run away while I was doing this unrehearsed and unexpected task :P)

The purpose of the Memory Box activity is to raise awareness about the importance of preserving memories.

All these activities are going to take a lot of planning on mine and Heesoo's part, but I feel that we're up to the challenge.

Supervising a Grade 6 class

Yesterday I was requested by Ms. Trina, a teacher at our school to supervise her Grade 6 class for 10 minutes near the end of the day. This was quite an experience, as the Grade 6 class proved to be a group of...enthusiastic, energetic and excited kids, especially so near hometime :P

I haven't gotten to spend too much time with kids of that age recently, and I don't really remember what I myself was like at that age, so I'm not completely sure whether this is true, but one of them assured me "don't worry, we are like this all the time", probably out of pity as I was running around looking foolish trying frantically to make them stay quite.

I would like to think that I made a good authority figure, with a certain amount of assertiveness, especially when I made sure that they cleaned up the classroom and put the chairs and tables back as they were supposed to. I would also like to think that they did not grumble too much about me, as I stood firmly by the door to ensure that they did not run away before they completed this task :P

All in all, I have learnt through this experience to really appreciate my teachers from now on, and perhaps also to exclude teaching as a choice for my own career in the future :P

Selling food for Yearbook

Yesterday at the Secondary Drama Production, we raised funds for the yearbook group by selling refreshments during the intermission.

I volunteered to bring drinks, but took part in selling other things as well.

Since the start of the new year, this was the first opportunity to brush up on my business skills. We worked as a team behind the counter, and were helping each other over all the chaos to ensure a quick customer service. :)

Link to Alzheimer's Blog!

As promised, here is the link to the newly created Alzheimer's Blog:

http://alzheimerscasosc.blogspot.com/

The blog is still in the early stages but members of our group will soon be accessing it and adding their thoughts, experiences and ideas on it, so please bear with us :)

Key Club Update: A blog for Alzheimer's.

Today we had a Key Club meeting where we discussed the need to create individual Service Group Blogs that will run regular updates on what is happening.

My co-leader Heesoo and I plan to get this blog up and running soon (in around 2 weeks) and I will post a link to it on here.

The blog will have information on funds we've raised, various activities we have taken part in, upcoming events and general information about the Alzheimer's disease.

During the second part of our meeting we took part in a small group activity where we discussed the interrelationship between 'Service' and 'Learning' and I realized it is essentially both of them together make up our unique Community Service Program at OSC. I really feel fortunate to be part of such a complete and whole-rounded program!

Upcoming goals for Alzheimers's

During our Service hour today we discussed the events that will take place during the remainder of the semester.

- Next week we will have a talk from a parent of the school Mrs. Elena Brodholt- Kourchenko, who works closely with the Foundation. This will be a learning experience for everyone and an opportunity to understand more about the disease.

- We also discussed the need to make a visit to the centre again.

Since it has now been opened and is functioning as a Day Care Centre now, our visit this time will enable us to actually interact with the patients.

We have planned for the visit to happen on 17th November and prior to that we have decided to ask donations from the school for board games such as Chess, Bingo, etc that we can take for the patients.

- The idea of a 'Memory Box' was put forward which will be directed at teaching students the value and importance of preserving memories. This is still in the planning stages and more information will be available soon.

Helping out on UN Day :)

Today was UN Day at our school; a day in which students express their individual nationalities and cultures through dress, food, etc; a true expression of 'Unity in Diversity'.

This year's topic was Child Right's and each homeroom held discussions and debates about what they think a Child's Rights are, and what we can do in the future to improve them.

I was part of co-supervising this activity, and through this experience developed my leadership and organization skills, as well as learn a lot about an issue of Global importance.

Tennis continues...

I have been attending my regular Tennis lessons on Mondays and my coach is now training me to take part in a friendly tournament that he puts up for his students each year.

This would be my first real tennis match and I am quite excited (and scared too!).

Lessons have now been focusing on the actual game situation and with lots of practice rallying and serving.

Below are some pictures:

New Creativity CAS: Yearbook!

This year in my goals I planned to fulfill more of the Creativity aspect of CAS and I chose the Yearbook activity to do this.

During our first meeting of yearbook I was appointed to create the 'Founder's Day' page and will be doing this for most part of the semester.

Through this activity I am learning something new, which is using Photoshop, and also exploring my passion for art in a different way, through technology.

I look forward to a good year in the Yearbook committee!

Alzheimer's Annual Walk 2011

Today was the Alzheimer's Annual Walk and nearly everyone in our group took part in it.

Like last year, this year's walk was also aimed at raising awareness about the disease and getting to know other people in Sri Lanka who are working towards the common goal of spreading the word and helping patients.

Visit to the Alzheimer's Center with new group

Yesterday was the new Alzheimer's groups' visit to the centre. This time, we were shown around by Mr. Tamitagama.

The visit was a great success, and it has enabled us to plan ahead for the group activities in the coming Year.

Mr. Tamitagama has offered us the priviledge of attending the patient's sessions with a Doctor and to conduct Memory Tests ourselves. This will be a great learning experience and oppurtunity especially since I am intested in pursuing Medicine in the future.

The centre is looking to officially open on the 21st and we have also been invited to the opening ceromony. However, since it is taking place during school hours, it might be difficult for us to attend.

Nevertheless, we have promised the centre that we plan to visit every month and take part in various therapy sessions with the patients such as cooking, art, music, etc., and our group eagerly looks forward to this.

Meeting for Community Service Leaders

Today we had our first meeting to kick off the Service activities for the academic year 2011-2012.

All student leaders were able to meet up with our supervisors and plan ahead for the Service sessions of this year.

The teacher supervisor for the Alzheimer's group for this year is Ms. Rossana Favero, who was in fact responsible for first introducing establishing this project at our school. Through her good relations with the Lanka Alzheimer's Foundation Founders Mr and Mrs Tamitagama, I feel that this year holds a lot of potential for us to work as a group in order to move our activity forwards.

All students were given a copy of the school calendar on which to plan the activities for the coming year.

So far, for the first semester from August - December, we have planned to sell raffle tickets, the remaining cards and pens from last year, take part in the annual Alzheimer's walk, visit the Center regularly; at least once a month, and finally attend the christmas party held for the patients in December.

Grade 12: Goals for CAS

During this final year in the IB, I plan to focus particularly on the Creativity aspect which was slighlty overlooked last year. I plan to join the year-long activity of Yearbook, as I've wanted to join this several times in the past year but have not managed to get a place.

I think the Yearbook committee is a great example of a team working together collaboratively. The aspect of time management is also of the utmost importance. I think by joining this, I will be able to enhance these aspects in the CAS criterion.

For Action, I plan to continue Tennis, as I have been doing throughout the summer holidays as well, in the International Club in Bangladesh. I am also looking forward to participating in a friendly tournament that my coach is organizing for all his current students. This will be a challenge for me, as I have never taken part in a Tennis tournament since joining the sport.

For the Service part of CAS, as a co-leader of the Alzheimer's group, I plan to initiate more activities than last year for the group to work on. This would be made possible more easily, due to the opening of the new centre in July.
Our group has been invited by Mrs. Lorraine; the co-founder of the Lanka Alzheimer's Foundation to take part in interacting with the patients by organizing and taking part in various activities such as Art, Music, Cooking, etc.
These activities and visits to the centre will take a lot more careful planning and involve enthusiasm in engaging the entire group, as well as working collaboratively with my co-leader Heesoo.

I hope this will be a successful year of CAS, and by the end of it I will be able to feel proud of what I plan to achieve.

Tennis during the summer!

Even though it is the summer holidays, I have not stopped practicing tennis. I am not in Sri Lanka for most part of the summer but I have been going to the International Club in Dhaka, Bangladesh for Tennis practices 2-3 times every week.

The coach here is must more fast paced and this has enabled me to quicken my own timing. I have also had to get used to the Dhaka weather which is a lot more sunny and hot than Colombo.

I am quite proud at the way I have been able to adapt to the new lessons and am having lots of fun playing!

Grade 11: CAS Reflections

As Grade 11 drew to an end, so did the first year of IB and the CAS program.

Looking back, I am happy that I was able to try out a few different activities and programs throughout the year, and moreover, that I managed to keep a continuous and ongoing CAS program without any major lapses in time.

For the Action aspect of my CAS, I had a weekly tennis lessons with my coach Mr. Chandaka, and from starting out as a beginner in tennis, I am happy to see that I have now learnt the basics of how to do a forehand, backhand and volley shot. I am also able to serve, though this is the aspect I'm least comfortable in and plan to improve it next year.

In terms of Service, I have been able to take part and then lead the Alzheimer's activity. While most of this year comprised of collecting funds, my co-leader and I have high hopes for the next year, where we can actually visit the newly built center to interact with the patients.

The Creativity aspect of CAS was the one I feel that I took least part in this year. In the beginning of the year, through to the end of the first term, I took part in the Primary Set Design activity where I helped paint the backdrop for the Seussical. However, after this, even though I was determined to do something else art related, I was not able to find a Creative activity that I would like to have taken part in, as a suitable opportunity did not present.

The Creativity aspect is what I want to pay particular attention to next year, while also continuing with both tennis and Alzheimer's.

Visit to the Alzheimer's Center

Yesterday was our first visit to the newly built Alzheimer's Center whose work was completed just recently. The small funds raised by the Alzheimer's group at OSC has been going to helping the construction of this site. As the co-leaders of the Service group of Alzheimer's at OSC, Heesoo and I have been very busy trying to organize everything that was required for the visit to happen smoothly, such as transport, parental permission forms for other group members, finding out suitable times for the visit to occur, etc.

The visit itself was both interesting and inspiring. To mention a quote made in the short speech given by Mrs. Tamitagame, the co-founder of the Lanka Alzheimer's Foundation, she said "[the center] has been a dream that we have been working towards for a long time. Over time, like a jigsaw puzzle falling into place, with a lot of dedication from everyone involved and little-little help from organizations and schools like yours, that dream has come true". It was truly inspirational that she was so dedicated and driven towards achieving this goal, and that alone accounted for a huge learning experience.

She further showed real enthusiasm for us working with her and being more involved with the patients, with more frequent visits to the center where we can engage in different activities such as cooking, sewing, art, or putting up small performances to entertain and amuse. This will undoubtedly involve more planning on the part of Heesoo and I, but we are both willing to step up to the challenge. With a sure place to go for our service program to take place, I believe that there will be a lot more happening in our Service next year.

Below are some pictures from our visit, and of the lovely, spacious center:

Key Club meeting

Today we had an informal meeting for Key Club where we made plans for the official meeting taking place next week. This will be our first big meeting of the term.

In it we will be discussing about updating the CAS website of OSC, and the reports that need to come in from the other CAS leaders.

As the Vice-President I will need to take an initiative role in the proceedings.

Food and Fun Fair : Selling cards for Alzheimer's again.

On Saturday 12th of March was our school's Food and Fun Fair. This is an event where all students, teachers and parents gather for a Mela type experience. A variety of stalls and activities are put up and basically everyone has a lot of FUN. :)

Our Alzheimer's group thought that this would a good opportunity where we could raise some funds for our activity by selling some of the beautiful cards from before. We collaboratively planned and initiated a stall where we could sell them during the event. We saw them as a very promising sales item as we'd had such success when we sold them the first time.

I think our group was really great in working together, and a special well done should go out to Radhika and Alisha of Grade 10 who went around asking people all over the fair whether they'd like to buy our cards. Their enthusiasm was really motivating. :)

By the end of the day we had managed to raise around Rs 13,000. I feel that we really couldn't have done it without our teamwork!

First ever Key Club at OSC!

The Key Club is an international organization that supports students like us in leading and conducting community service based activities in order to promote character building and developing leadership. On the 24th of February, OSC appointed it's first ever Key Club board members.The Key Club in Sri Lanka is supported by an organization called Kiwanis, whose director and president graced this occasion in appointing the positions of the newly appointed leaders of Key Club in OSC, and Sri Lanka.

The previous day we had nominated and elected the board members and they were as follows:
President - Damien Martin
Vice President - Harini Liyanage (me!)
Secretary - Annie Gillstedt
Treasurer - Terunaga Tamura
Chief Editor - Heesoo Kim
Directors - Aparna Iyer, Maheshi Dharmasiri, Sandushi Pathirage, Keisha Gani, Avindhya Koralagamage.

I was extremely honored and proud to be elected this position and as the Vice President I know that I have many duties and responsibilities to fulfill. I plan to support and work collaboratively with the President and the other board members in further enhancing our Community Service programme in OSC. With the support of the other leaders of various Service activities who are all members of the Key Club, I think we can make a difference and strengthen our Service programs even more. It is really great that OSC has become a part of Key Club as we now have support of the wider international community in our various programs. We are really appreciative and grateful of our Service Supervisor Ms. Shameela Rajudin for introducing the Key Club to us.

My official duties were also introduced to me during the ceremony and I am willing and looking forward to completing them to the best of my abilities during my time in this club.


The newly appointed Key Club board members.

Update for Tennis

Last week's tennis lesson took place on a clay court instead of a concrete one, and in the sunny morning heat instead of the milder sun in the evening. This was the first time I'd played under such conditions so it was an interesting challenge having to adapt to it quickly. This is because the ball bounces less on the clay coat and of course the heat is stronger.
However, it seems that after that lesson I seem to play more efficiently on the concrete court as well. In fact, my coach called that lesson the "break through" and said that I am now able to return a larger number of balls successfully than before when rallying/playing. He said it was a marked sign of improvement and I was really happy about that. :)

Here are some pictures of me playing on the clay court:

Alzheimer's: first job as a new leader. :)

On monday last week, the leaders of the different CAS projects were in charge of putting up a presentation for the PTA of our school. This was the perfect opportunity to show our parents what we have been doing to help the community! :)
I was required to speak to people and tell them about our Service project, and this was also quite a challenge because we really had to know the information thoroughly! My co-leader Hee Soo and I, also made a Powerpoint presentation to go along with our display. We presented our overall display with the help of our last-years group leader Anishka. I think we worked really well and were very good in terms of getting things done and backing each other up while explaining, displaying great teamwork!

Week Without Walls 2011 - Hambantota.

Last week was our much awaited Week Without Walls! This year we went to Hambantota and Yala, which are in the south of Sri Lanka. The WWW comprised of 5 days, and this is how we spent each of them :)

Day 1: the trip to Hambantota. After arrival at the hotel, our grade got together to do the essential planning that was needed to make this trip a success. Each of us set up goals that we wanted to achieve on during our visit there, especially when working with the kids at the preschools. Mine were:
* to work with consideration towards everyone in the group.
* to be patient when working with the kids
* to be of actual use in what we were planning to do at the school (i.e. not waste time/ get the work done)
* to work efficiently while improving my time management skills.
* and last but not least,
to have FUN, of course :)
We also practiced songs for the concert that we were planning to put up for the kids at the schools, and the Sinhala speaking people in our class managed to teach everyone a Sinhala song that we could perform for the kids, as they will be able to understand and connect better with a song in their own language. It was a new experience to teach this, especially when I had to sing aloud to get the accents through. This was something I would never have normally done, as singing is not my greatest strength, and it was a way in which I was challenged to do something new. :P

Day 2: was our 1st working day at the schools. One of the great things that I found out on this day was that everyone in our group worked really well together and weren't hesitant to help out with anything that needed to be done. I too, managed to do several things; play with the kids, go shopping with Mr. Lockwood to buy more supplies (I was needed for Sinhala translation), work on a mural and also help with painting the inside walls. Everyone else also did many jobs that they hadn't necessarily elected to do from before. In that sense, the team work and collaboration factor of everyone in our group was great. :)

Painting the rail track/ Announcing in Sinhala/ Playing with the kids . :)

Aparna and I painting the mural. :)

Day 3: the 2nd working day at the schools also went very smoothly. I managed to finish the first mural and at last minute notice, our group decided that we should do another one as well (as there was one empty wall left), and amazingly we managed to finish that on time too! :)

My time management skills were really put to a test here and I'm really glad that I was able to stand up to the challenge. Moreover, my ability to speak in Sinhala came of more use again, as Uthpala and I were called by the teachers of the preschool to introduce the acts that the kids put up in the concert. This was again something of a challenge, because I normally do not enjoy speaking in front of an audience. By the end of this experience, I have pretty much gotten over that fear. :)

The finished products :)

Day 4: was our trip to the Yala national park. This really great and memorable experience, and by far better than last year's Safari, because this time we saw a lot more animals than birds! In fact, we managed to see a leopard, which you need to be really lucky to spot, and also herds of deer, buffalo, a wild boar, a jackal, an elephant and several crocodiles. We also saw a lot of birds but this time a peacock actually came on the road and danced right in front of our jeep! It was a very enjoyable day, and a great learning experience too, as I learned the names of many animals that I didn't know before.

Day 5: back home after an amazing trip! :)

Alzheimer's leaders for 2011.

Me and Hee Soo have been selected as the leaders for our Alzheimer's CAS for this year. We had the first meeting for leaders today and we have already been set a task.
We are to concentrate on organizing a presentation for the PTA, on what we have done in our Service so far, indicating donations made and money raised.
We have already started on our powerpoint, and when we next meet with our group we plan to talk about posters and brochures that can be made to indicate our progress during the last semester.
We hope to get started soon! (as soon as everyone comes back from WWW)

WWW planning!

WWW 2011 is nearly here... in fact, it's just next week!
Of course, before we actually set off, there has been a lot of planning and preparation being done during the past few weeks. This is because we're going to be taking part in a very important aspect of our Service there, wherein we help out with the maintenance of a couple of post-Tsunami pre-schools, and we interact with the children and give them a small gift. I, along with Kasturi and Chrisni, were made the leaders in charge of getting the gift packs for the kids, so last Friday Kasturi and I went to purchase what we decided we might include in them. These items consisted 50 each of pencils, erasers, sharpeners, rulers, pencil cases, water bottles, lunch boxes and school bags for the children, as well as a Saree each for the 4 teachers at the 2 schools we're visiting. Firstly we had to raise money in order to purchase these things, and each member of our Grade donated Rs. 1000/- for this cause. Although it took a whole day to find and buy all the needed items, both me and Kasturi felt really proud after we had successfully bought all these things for 50 small children, managing to keep within our budget with some on-the-spot, smart-shopping decisions!
Today we helped organize the things we'd bought in the bags for each child.
This experience demanded a lot of responsibility on our part, not only in handling the money properly and safely, but also in taking initiative to talk to various shop-keepers and organizing all the required gifts.

I'm really looking forward to next week, when we will actually be off to our Week Without Walls, where I will be in the group for playing with the kids and helping out with the mural that we are going to paint on the walls.