'Hope For Kids' - First Visit to the Cancer Hospital

On Thursday 8th of September 2011, the 'Hope For Kids' CAS group visited the National Cancer Institue Maharagama. I had never visited the Cancer Hospital yet so this was a very importat trip for me. As a group, what we aimed to do was to make the children at the hospital happy and we thought it would be nice to make photo frames out of paper and beads with the children so that we could take photos of us and them and put them in, for them to keep.

 

I had so much fun playing with the children and making the photo frames with them. Seeing them happy because of us was really touching. I feel priviledged to be a part of this CAS group as it made me realize how much happiness can come out of our visits to the Cancer Hospital. I am really looking forward to our next visit!

 

By taking part in this CAS activity I am undertaking new challenges as this is something I have never done before. I am also working collaboratively with others in planned and initiated activities as we, as a group, plan the things with do with the children and work together to make it a success. I am also engaging in issues of global importance because Cancer is a disease that affects people all over the world and it is our job to make them happier.

Sports Day!

Our school held a Sports Day on the 7th of September 2011. I had a lot of fun playing and watching the games throughout the day.

'Hope For Kids' Cancer Hospital

I had my first meeting with the 'Hope For Kids' CAS activity at school on Thursday 1st of September 2011. In the meeting, we were basically informed about what the CAS was for and planned some fund raising events to raise money for the Cancer Hospital. We came up with events such as musical concerts, bake sales, fashion shows etc. for the fund raisers and came up with some things we could do to make the children at the hospital happy, like hand making photo frames to put pictures of them and us in. We planned to visit the hospital about every 2 weeks. I have never been to the hospital so I am excited to meet the children and play with them and help out around the hospital. In this CAS activity I am working collaboratively with others, taking part in planned and initiated activities and showing perseverance and commitment. I am also dealing with issues of global importance, since Cancer is a disease that affects people all around the world and considering the ethical implications of my actions.

Painting the Senior Common Room

As Seniors, we have the priviledge of using the Common Room and to brighten it up we decided to paint the walls of the inside. We all worked collaboratively in a planned and initiated activity of painting the room.

Goals for Senior Year

Now that I am at the begininning of my Senior Year at the Overseas School of Colombo, I need to set some goals for my CAS activities for this year.

Creativity:

I want to continue individual piano and guitar practices. I also want to continue painting for fun, separate from my works for art classes.

With this I will fulfill the following criteria:

• Showing perserverance and commitment


• Developing new skills

Action:

This year I feel like there will be a lot of studying to do so I want to manage my time well with sports. Last year I tried out a new sport; Basketball, but I found this very challenging so this year I think I will only do Swimming and Badminton. Although the variety of sports I do will be quite narrow, I will swim on a regular basis (as I have been over the summer on my own) and Badminton practices will start on the 5th of September 2011 and will be on every Monday.

With this I will fulfill the following criteria:

• Increasing awareness of my strengths and areas of growth


• Working collaboratively with others (in Badminton)


• Showing perseverance and committment


• Developing new skills

Service:

Last year I took part in the CAS Activity in school which organized the school library to make it more easily accessible for students. This year I think I will try another CAS activity that benefits those more in need of my help; 'Hope for Kids' which is a CAS activity that raises funds to help cancer patients.

With this I will fufill the following criteria:

• Increasing awareness of my strengths and areas for growth


• Undertaking new challenges


• Planning and initiating activities


• Working collaboratively with others


• Showing perseverance and committment


• Engaging in issues of global importance

These are the main acitivities I plan on taking part in this year. I will also take part in small activities and create posts to show this when they come up.

OSC Class of 2011 Graduation Ceremony help-out

The current Grade 11s were asked to help out in the graduation ceremony for this year's graduating grade. The help out included ushering and serving food.

End of Grade 11

This academic year is now drawing to a close. Overall I feel there was a fairly equal balance between my Creativity, Action and Service activities. I think, by taking part in these activities, I was able to fulfill all 8 criteria:

• Increase awareness of your strengths and areas of growth


• Undertake new challenges


• Plan and initiate activities


• Work collaboratively with others


• Show perseverance and committment


• Engage with issues of global importance


• Consider ethical implications


• Develop new skills.

I tried out things that I had never tried before, and also took part in activities that I had always enjoyed to try to improve my skills in them, or gain new ones. My acitivies this year were:

Creativity

• Colombo Model United Nations - Security Council Representative


• Piano


• Ceramics Workshop


• Painting


• Guitar

MUN, Piano and Painting were activities that I had always enjoyed doing, but Ceramics was something new for me and it was very enjoyable to try out something I had never done before. I hoped that MUN would help in my debating and public speaking skills and I feel it actually did because the Colombo MUN was much more intense than any of the other MUN conferences I had ever attended. As before, I thoroughly enjoyed playing the piano and the guitar and painting, although they were done freely on my own without a teacher since I feel I enjoy that much more.

Action:

• Swimming


• Basketball


• Badminton

I have always enjoyed swimming so I decided to take part in the school swimming practice here as well to improve some of my strokes. Although I thoroughly enjoyed swimming here, the practices were extremely tiring and I felt that I was able to improve a lot, thanks to the coaches here. I started Badminton about a year ago and since then I have found it quite fun. I have little experience so my skills on court are not so great but I still enjoyed playing and competing and I feel I was able to gain some new skills. Basketball was a completely new sport for me and I wanted to try something new. I don't feel that Basketball is something I'm good at but I think I learnt a lot of things from the coach at this school. I found that I enjoyed swimming and Badminton much more than I enjoyed Basketball but nonetheless, it was quite fun.

Service

• Library Service


• Japanese Fair at Galle, Sri Lanka


• Book Drive continuation from last year


• Week Without Walls


• Donations for the Japan Earthquake


• OSC Class of 2011 Graduation Ceremony help-out

Overall, I am pleased with the CAS activities I took part in this year. I feel I fulfilled all 8 criteria by taking part in these activities and my goal next year is to keep it up. I want to develop my skills, gain new ones and increase awareness of what's around me. I look forward to CAS next year.