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!