Student Government Association (SGA)
Create, Service
In grade 11, after an election that took place in grade 10, I was selected as the treasurer for the SGA. Although I was not able to gain enough votes for president, I was excited to take part in a major role in school.
I took part in three of the major events: the Halloween disco, the Ice cube and the OSCars. There were other minor events constantly, such as Valentines chocolate delivery and Canteen Surveys, but those were mainly planning and the actual job was done by the class representatives.
The Halloween Disco
The Halloween disco was the first event I took part, and my first attempt for planning an activity, not only in SGA, but also in my life. This was a new challenge to me. As we were trying to reduce prices for the events, we decided to do the DJ ourselves. We practiced for several weeks with advises from a trained DJ, and we were able to accomplish the disco with a moderate quality. This was a success at my first attempt of planning and initiating activities, which was based on a lot of collaboration with my fellow SGA representatives.
Ice Cube
The Halloween disco was the first event I took part, and my first attempt for planning an activity, not only in SGA, but also in my life. This was a new challenge to me. As we were trying to reduce prices for the events, we decided to do the DJ ourselves. We practiced for several weeks with advises from a trained DJ, and we were able to accomplish the disco with a moderate quality. This was a success at my first attempt of planning and initiating activities, which was based on a lot of collaboration with my fellow SGA representatives.
Ice Cube
The Ice cube was not as successful as the Halloween disco. The Ice cube was supposed to be a winter dance, so we tried to put the best effort into the decorations. The two main disasters were the ice, and the lack of profit. The Ice was to make the event feel more winter like – as it is “Ice cube” – which started to melt earlier than we thought, resulting a huge puddle in the foyer. For this event, because we wanted to use our money to the fullest extent with the least from people, we gained almost no extra profit. These made us think about better planning.
OSCars
The OSCars, is the main event in the school year which the SGA does annually. As the major event, our goals were to make the food as good as possible and cheap as possible – which most of the students wanted – and this time, see a minimum of 10,000 rupees of profit. In order to accomplish this, we decided to find a new restaurant to take catering from rather than what the school used regularly. Although it was still quite expensive, we were able to serve good food with a reasonable price. The tickets were kept at 1500 rupees, which was 500 rupees cheaper than the previous year, and yet attain a profit of 10,000 rupees for donation. This significantly developed my skill of planning and initiating activities, and also collaborating more with the representatives.
Eco+
Create, Service
Initiated by a friend, I was a leader of the morning elective, Eco+. The title from our supervisor, this activity was to promote awareness about simple ecology of the near environment. Our main goal was to make people think about their own environment, and hence that those would help the world as well, giving it global importance. The two main events were power point presentations that were conducted at the assembly.
The first presentation was an interactive presentation about electricity, conducted using the audience. They all stood up, and some people had cards on their seats. The cards mentioned names of the population in Sri Lanka, and people gradually sat down as the cards were called. First, the peasants and villagers who had no cards, people who only have electricity at work, and then poor people who have minute electricity at their homes. The people that were left standing were "us", people that use electricity 24 hours straight; and, we are the ones that restrict these people from using their electricity. This presentation was quite impacting to some teachers as they sent e-mails to our supervisors telling how they were moved. Air-conditioners were told to be stopped before breaks as well, which gave us confidence that we can influence people.
The second presentation was about usage of water, where a science fiction power point was played on screen. This presentation was not made by us, but a presentation our supervisor received a while back. This presentation showed a world where people have wasted water so much that they were in change of money. Although the setting was slightly exaggerated, once again some people were moved by it. This time, the school had no action, but we believe that some people have rethought their use of water.
We also planned a presentation for the small kids in elementary school, who are still not told about ecological problems. I tried to make our group members plan the presentation, but students kept on forgetting and it never happened. This happened a several times, which showed that I needed to work harder on conducting other people to do work.
Habitat for Humanity
Service, Action
Service, Action
In the beginning of 11th grade, my classmate promoted a new CAS activity in our school of Habitat for Humanity. This activity is widely recognised around the world, and both my old schools also had them, so I was excited to attend this CAS. Even though I could not attend the first and only build, the activity supplied me with the felling of helping people by helping raise money; though, this stroke me with ethical implications of whether just raising money will help the people in need. I have no evidence that these money are going for the people in need, neither do i know how it is going to be used other than using it for buying building materials. All I can do is believe that the money is sent to proper hands.
Primary Movie Afternoon
The first event HfH organized was the primary movie afternoon. It was not a big event for us, but it seemed quite significant to the kids. We prepared popcorn and drinks, and children watched the movies after eating them. The movie was decided to be Monster House from Ambley Entertainment, and the children enjoyed watching it.
The 5K run
One of the biggest planning activities in Habitat for Humanity was the 5K run. Proceeding the primary movie afternoon, the service decided to collect donations from running a "donation run," like the Terry Fox Run. By a help of one of our members, we were able to get sponsored by ODEL (a fairly large shopping mall) and helped us prepare prises for the winners of the run. The YouTube clip below is a fancy slideshow of the run.
Although this CAS activity was satisfactory, the students did not have sufficient opportunities for making decisions, which started to fade out as being a "student lead activity."
Yearbook
Yearbook
Create
In Grade 12, I regained my job as a photographer as I re-joined yearbook. As photography was one of my strengths, I was delighted to join yearbook. Although, in previous years I have persevered my job as a photographer with commitment, such as in the Elementary and Secondary Sports Day and every drama performance.
Recently, I have been given my job as the main photographer to the 11th grade students in order to develop a stable ground and experience for the proceeding 11th graders for next year's yearbook. Unfortunately, we do not have any 10th grade that who is willing to try out for the photographer, so the 10th grade photographers will probably be trained by the current 11th graders next year.
From the reason above, I am only taking photographs for the pages I am making, which is generally the Arts page, which is Drama and Art. I have previously posted several photos which I have taken for the IB production in 2010.
Prison Babies
Service
From the second semester of Grade 12, I joined Prison Babies. It was a CAS I have joined in 10th Grade, but things have changed and they are no longer going to prison. We have been going to a place called the Bethlehem Creche. Here are children who's parents are somehow related to prison, and are abandoned, so we go there every two weeks to play with them. I went and looked at the playground (one of the pictures) for any fixing, but surprisingly it was sustained quite well. Despite the paint falling, none of the materials found to have rusts. It seems that another school has been here before, and their painting material definitely helped the equipments to be sustainable. The ethical implication of this activity is significant, as our actions, such as teaching them English and giving them expensive toys, could easily change each children's lives. Although I would like to believe that our activities will give the children positive change, and would provide them a more satisfying life in the future.
I also found out that I am not very strong with children, which is definitely an area of growth. In the future, I shall strive to be better at children, especially when I think about my my further future.
Track and Field
Action
Track and Field was my first attempt on a sports activity at OSC. As I was not engaged in sports before, I found this opportunity interesting. My set goal on this activity was not to become a part of the track team, but to sustain regular exercise. I've attended all morning and after school practices, and even though it was hard, I was able to keep up with the exercise. Even after the trial period, where the official members were selected, I continued simple exercises at home, such as push ups and squats. This experience gave me a bit of confidence to exercise, which I am still continuing everyday before going to bed.
Although I have not mentioned it each time, most of the experiences in the two years of the IB program was a new challenge. I am glad to have experienced this precious two years, and it will become a treasure to me.
