Community & Service (A new year)

Semester 2 had wrapped up! Service is almost done for most students but most importantly, Habitat for Humanity Service Group had succeeded in fulfilling their goals for the year.

As mentioned in pervious blog posts, our main focus is to be able to raise enough money and construct houses for the people who need it. Now creating something like this for people does not come easy because there are a lot of steps involved in making sure everything goes as followed. Our group had been committing each week to assisting people and making sure that plans were completed. 

• Fundraising (Donation) 
• Advertising 
• Sponsorship deals 
• Construction of Houses 

These 4 bullet points were our main objective. As one of the three leaders i had already been on multiple builds and school trips which then involved me to take part in community and service, the ability to grant people something beneficial in life was something i always admired. Yes, it is challenging, but when you are able to accomplish these things you feel nothing but joy and admiration for yourself and your group. Over the last 2 years being the leader we had not only raised 250,000 rupees, but we had also reached out to other international schools and local groups for assistance. Now working towards raising 600,000 rupees we are going around places asking for jobs, possible work opportunities, something to keep our younger students busy and interested in our program. As we strive to make the world a better place for the poor we are willing to take what ever offer is there for us. Taking charge of a group containing 9 boys and 1 girl we are dynamic and work well amongst each other.  

With some students dropping out of community and service we had to find some other replacements to our group, so far we have only found 1 new student willing to take part in helping us progress even more. As of now, we are working towards making as much money as possible through peoples donations, and fundraising events. This will then allow us to organise a trip for students to go out into the rural areas of Sri Lanka and help people feel safe and not threatened. Contacting other work groups for possible trips out of colombo to work has been rather successful. Just this weekend a few students from our group took a trip up north and worked along side a former OSC representative who ended up creating his own constructive program granting people a roof over their heads and a bed to on. As students of OSC it is our responsibility to take matters into our own hands and become independent learners as we grow. Habitat for Humanities allows you to do just that. You develop your organization skills, your time management, your ability to speak out to the public and become a risk taker. You will always be asked to reflect on prior works, fundraising events etc, simply to identify what could've been done better or what can be added on top to make the event stand out more. Each student takes on multiple roles and works along side one another in making the right things happen. 

From being participant myself to become the group leader i've not only seen the Community and Service group change in terms of work but also in terms of commitment and determination. All my students are more than 100% willing to take risks and make chances possible for people.