2nd semester of the community service at OSC has started on the 2nd of February. For this session, we gathered as a group in order to make changes/improve what we have been doing last semester. We have been informed that the same children, who came last semester, are coming.

Last semester, we implemented a new activity, that is, teaching the children the fundamentals of computers, mostly typing. However, as we experienced this new activity, we realized that we weren’t doing very well with this, and the children were often bored after a while. Although we used a typing practice software, the children were mostly typing with the index finger and not placing the fingers on the right position on the keyboard. Therefore for this semester, we hope to thoroughly teach them the proper positions so that the children are learning something more meaningful than simply typing without knowing the basics.

For this semester, we have decided to include cricket as well. This is another implementation to expand our project and make this more meaningful to the children as well as to ourselves. This will not only bring more enjoyment for the children, but also to provide them an opportunity to play in a better condition (fields, equipment, etc), as their school have tiny ground and the conditions are not very good. We could also use the money in the CAS account to buy cricket bats and other equipment for them.

The new plan is to have one week where we teach swimming, and for the next week teach computers and play cricket, and we will be alternating this plan. We believe that having variety of activities will allow the children to have more enjoyment and more chance to be exposed to meaningful activities. To start off with, on the 9th of February, we will teach swimming, and on the 16th of February, we will teach computers and later play cricket. We’ll be spending about 20-30 minutes in the lab, and spend the rest of the time (around 30-40 minutes) playing cricket.

My goals for this project are:

  • To continue to give an effort to teach the children the swimming skills
  • To teach the children more swimming strokes (namely breast stroke)
  • To initiate the activity in collaboration with Avin and Ms. Abeyawardene
  • To improve the computer sessions compared to last semester
  • To provide an opportunity for the children to play cricket in a better environment
  • To buy some of the cricket equipment for the children
  • To show commitment and perseverance by attending every session