Sunflower Project: Final Evaluation

The last session of Sunflower Project for us seniors have finished this Thursday. We began by telling them to swim the width of the pool a few times with support when needed and did some practice on breast stroke. Then we moved onto diving practice. With the help of Mr. Stanley, the children were gradually getting better at diving and I hope that they will become confident in diving with a few more sessions of practice.

Since this is the last post on Sunflower Project, I’d like to make a reflection of this community service project and our accomplishment by linking to the 8 CAS criteria.

I confidently feel that I have found some of my strengths through this service project. One of them is the leadership. Community service is a student-led program and thus leadership is one of the keys to run the service project smoothly. As time has passed I became aware of my good leadership within this project to ensure that everything is running smoothly. This has contributed to my leadership in other activities as well, such as in badminton after school activities and so on. At the beginning I was aware that teaching the swimming skills to new swimmers was one area for growth. However, as I got to spend more time teaching I now feel is one of the strengths which I’ve grown, and I’m now confident to teach non-swimmers the fundamentals to swimming.

As a vice-leader it was a challenge for me to lead this community service project where students lead the service. However I was able to cope with this challenge and didn’t face any serious conflicts. Another challenge was the language barrier. The children don’t speak English and therefore it was very difficult to communicate. However, with the help of the service members who can speak Sinhalese, I was able to teach them swimming. This was an unfamiliar situation which I’ve faced but I feel that I’ve done a good job in this area.

Planning and initiating this activity was a challenging, yet an exciting part of this service. With Avin, who is the leader, we communicated and collaborated together to initiate and plan what we’d do in each session, and this is one of the factors which played a role in running this service project smoothly. This was specially evident when we couldn’t swim due to the weather and changed to teaching computers and playing cricket. Because we had planned earlier what to do we didn’t have to face any problem.

Collaboration was the key to success in this activity. Although we only have 5 members, we each collaborated together to teach group of children how to swim, and also doing other activities such as teaching them about computers and organizing a cricket match.

Perseverance and commitment was clearly shown throughout the semester from everybody. I attended EVERY session and I was always committed and excited to teach them about swimming and doing other activities. One reason that this activity is running smoothly even with 5 members  is because everybody is committed and attending every session.

Through this service project I was engaging with the issue of global importance. Swimming doesn’t sound like an important skill one should have, but I personally feel that it is a crucial skill to have regardless of the regions in the world because in some cases it could be life-risking if one doesn’t have the swimming skills. Therefore by teaching the non-swimmers how to swim, we were involved in an issue of global importance. We also expanded our engagement with this aspect by bringing in the computer teaching sessions. In the modern world, acquiring knowledge about technology is very crucial and thus by providing the children an opportunity to learn something about computers, we were engaging in an issue of global importance. Another point where we were engaging in this aspect was when we gave them the notebooks that they can use in their school. Education is an essential aspect that everybody in the world needs, and by supporting with them by providing educational materials, we were able to engage in a global issue.

The ethical implication which I considered was that other children from the same school (or even from other school for that matter) cannot get an opportunity to learn how to swim, and it is only the specific children that come every week who can learn about swimming and about computers. I always felt that this is unfair and raises an ethical question. Also even when we gave them the school notebooks, it was those specific children and nobody else, thus while the children didn’t have to pay to buy notebooks, other children would have paid to get them, which creates an unfair condition. Perhaps we could teach new group of children every 1-2 months so that many children are able to get an opportunity.

This service project led me to develop many skills. To name some, there were: leadership skills, skills to teach non-swimmers, skills to be able to plan and initiate project, skill to collaborate, skill to cope with language barrier, etc. Overall this was a very meaningful service project for me and I feel that I have gained a sort of experience which cannot easily be learned. I hope that this service project will continue with the remaining members and keep up the good work that we’ve been doing!

Sunflower Project 2nd semester update 5

As planned, this week we spent the whole session in the swimming pool.

At first we started off with just swimming from one side to the other and get them used to the water. We then moved onto free style, checking each and everybody’s form and whether they are doing the right movement or not.

Today we thought them a new swimming stroke, the breast stroke. We believed that now many of the children are at a level to advance to the next step. Breast stroke is little harder than free style in terms of the movement, therefore it was very challenging for us to teach them. Some of them have gotten the movement and seemed to be doing pretty good, but more than half of them are still not getting the movements right, and this is an area that we, as a group, need to collaborate together to help them improve their breast strokes.

Later on, some of them said they wanted to try diving, and therefore we gave them an opportunity to dive, even though we thought it could be dangerous as they cannot reach the bottom of the pool at the deep end. However, all of them were really enjoying it and it looked to me that they didn’t have a fear of not being able to reach the bottom. This was a clear evidence that their swimming skills are improving. Compared to the very first session of this year when the children were all scared to come into water, this is an amazing improvement and something that we and they should be proud of!

Next week will be an IT session followed by cricket.

Sunflower Project 2nd semester update 4

This week, we were planning to teach them swimming, but due to the unfavorable weather conditions, we changed our plan and we went to the IT lab to give them some computer lessons.

Since we couldn’t give them computer lessons last week, it was a good opportunity to have the session this week. We used a software that teaches the fundamentals to typing so that they could practice. Last semester, we didn’t fully make the use of this because they were simply typing without knowing which fingers to type with and so on, so this time we looked after each and everybody, teaching them about which letter to type with which finger. This is the most basic to the typing and although this is tough at the beginning for them as well as for us, we hope that through more practices they will improve. This requires a lot of perseverance and thus is a challenge but we hope to make commitments to help them as this will help them in the future, which is the purpose of this IT teaching lessons.

After about 30 minutes of typing practices, we took them to the gym, where we played some basketball and volleyball with them. There is less educational aspect in playing sports with them, but we believe that this is compensated by giving them a better environment and equipment to really enjoy what they like, which they don’t often get to experience in their local schools. 

Next week, we will be spending the entire time in the swimming pool.

Sunflower Project: 2nd semester update 3

The plan for this week’s session was to spend about 20-30 minutes in the IT lab to teach them about the typing fundamentals, but since we were unable to book any of the labs after school, we decided to play cricket today.

This was the first time to play cricket in this service project and although all of were unsure whether this would be successful or not, overall I’m very happy with the way that this proceeded. It was very clear that the children were really enjoying, and of course it was very enjoyable for us to play with them too. Sports is one area where communication plays a key role, and as I have difficulty in communicating with them due to the language barrier it was bit of a challenge that I had to take, but this is all part of the experiential learning and something very meaningful. All of us worked and collaborated together to make this happen, and as it was successful I feel that we have made another method of interacting with them as well as taking a step to a higher level of achievement.

Unexpectedly, the RCCI service project has joined us today to play cricket as well (Rehabilitation Center for the Communication Impaired, the children have communication disorders and other mental problems). As cricket is an integral part of the Sri Lankan culture, it is no surprise that everybody wants to join! It was a great opportunity to demonstrate a unity within a community, which is something of global importance.  Sports is one area where anybody can interact with each other regardless of the background and this lead me to think about some of the ethical implications. Whether some are disabled or not, the essence lies in the fact that there is something very valuable to get out which can be learned from this service project, which will benefit us in the future. We are more than welcome to play cricket with the RCCI children again the next time we play cricket.

RCCI children

Sunflower Project: 2nd semester update 2

This week the children have come (only 6, because apparently the older ones have exams coming up) and we spent time teaching them swimming. Since it has been a while since they have gotten practice last (in the early December), we started with the most fundamental skills, such as sinking in the bottom of the pool, and kicking. We then moved onto revising some of the things we taught them last year, such as swimming by kicking (with the floating boards) and free-style strokes. The good part was that many of them have been able to swim at the level they were swimming last semester. After about 40 minutes of productive teaching time, we played water polo for about 10-15 minutes and ended this week’s session.

It has been quite a while since we taught them last, but our previous experience in this project certainly helped, and we were able to give instructions smoothly. I hope to show a full commitment and perseverance in this activity throughout this semester, as this is the last opportunity for me to be involved in the service activities at OSC.

One of the ethical implications that I’ve taught of is about whether we should be teaching new group of children or not. The essence of this project is to teach children the fundamentals of swimming. The current group of children already have achieved this, and now it’s a matter of expanding the skills by teaching more strokes, but this is something beyond our main aim. I thought about whether it would be more beneficial to teach a new group of children, so that many children can get an opportunity to learn how to swim.

One of the things which I realized that Avin and I need to do, is to give the current 11th graders an opportunity to lead this activity. This is so that they get an idea of how it feels like to plan and initiate the activities, since they’ll be taking over the leadership soon. We will give them more chance to lead this service from now on.

 

Sunflower Project: 2nd semester update 1

This week, we were planning to spend 1 hour training the children swimming, but they were unable to come, and so the schedule has been shifted by 1 week. So the next week will be swimming, and for the session on the week after the next, we will spend time on the IT lab and later play cricket in the field.

Sunflower Project: 2nd Semester

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

Sunflower Project Update 8

On the 14th of December, we had the end of semester party with the children. Yariq has funded us with the money to buy chicken basket from the near KFC, and we also got some drinks. It was a good opportunity for us to talk and interact with them outside the swimming pool. We also asked and reflected about how they feel about their improvement and the confidence level in swimming and so on.

We’ve decided to give them the notebooks, which they need for their school. Avin and I ordered those particular notebooks in advance, and we gave them to each children on the 16th of December after school. Education is an issue of global importance, and I feel that we’ve made this activity more meaningful to us as well as the children by doing more than just teaching swimming. Since we have the money for these purposes in our account, we hope to use it for other meaningful purposes in the next semester as well. At the same time, there is an ethical aspect to consider because there are many more children at their school, but only the few that were with us for this semester could get the notebooks. But we hope to help more as new group of children come in future.

Sunflower Project Update 7

Today was the last session for the actual teaching for this semester. As our usual routine, we gave them directions on what to do, and they swam across the width of the pool up and down. Mr. Stanley was also assisting in teaching the children, and today’s session was mainly to get them to improve any aspects that they were not very strong at. For the last 15 minutes, we let the children do whatever they wanted to do, since this was the last session for them to get into the pool.

The initial goals set at the beginning of this semester were:

• To teach the children the fundamental swimming skills with the assistance of Mr. Stanley
•  To ensure that by the end of the year, everybody is capable of helping themselves in the pool without our assistance
• To teach some fundamental IT skills

In terms of the first goal, our members did a fantastic job. It was not easy to teach a non-swimmer how to swim, and at times we were struggling, but we managed to pull through with the assistance of Mr. Stanley, and we were able to teach them the fundamental swimming stills.

The second goal wasn’t fully achieved because there were 2 children who were still struggling to swim after many sessions of training. That said, they were able to swim for about 5 meters without any assistance, and they only needed assistance to swim further. The majority were able to swim adequately, therefore even though this goal wasn’t fully achieved, this goal was achieved to a good level.

The third goal was partially achieved, and we found it tough to teach them about computers, mainly because this was the first time we taught children about the fundamental IT skills. We were able to get them to learn about the fundamental typing, the finger positions and so on, but it was very difficult to plan what to teach them, in what order and so on, therefore this goal was the least achieved one out of the three goals. Children were getting bored towards the end, and this is one of the issues that we need to improve to enhance this project and make it more meaningful to the children as well as to ourselves.

Other goals were:

1. To undertake the challenge of teaching non-swimmers how to swim
2. To undertake the challenge of teaching children who are not familiar with computers
3. To plan and initiate activities and work collaboratively with Avin (the leader), Ms. Abeyawardene and Ms. Bertus (supervisors) for each session
4. To show perseverance and commitment in this project by attending sessions every week and ensuring that others are attending each session as well
5. To realize the significant and the implication of the activity on the children
6. To develop a skill to teach non-swimmers how to swim
7. To interact with the children and get to know them well, despite the language barrier

In terms of the first goal, as I’ve been mentioning, we all did a great job in undertaking the challenge. It is never easy to teach anything from the very beginning, but we all did it until the very end without giving up, and I’m proud of what I have been doing for the past few months.

As for the second goal, this was a bigger challenge than the first because we never taught children about computers. Although this wasn’t as successful as we’d hoped, we still tried to do what we can and took the challenge.

Regarding the third goal, we successfully achieved this one. We always discussed what we’d do in each session, and there were hardly times when we were unsure of what we should do. Our initiation and collaboration was very good and we maintained this throughout the course of this semester.

For the fourth goal, everybody and I have achieved this goal. Everybody had attended almost all the sessions and the perseverance and commitment was clearly shown. Additionally, in teaching swimming and computers, everybody showed perseverance and commitment, despite the challenge of teaching the beginners. Our collaboration was the key to achieving this goal, and I’m happy with the way our members were behaving throughout this semester.

As for the fifth goal, this was rather building a self-awareness. For me, I was enthusiastic about teaching the children about swimming and about computers, even though it was challenging, because teaching these things will benefit them in the long run. This was strongly shown at the beginning where we planned to teach them about computers as well, because we are surrounded by technologies and knowing the fundamentals can help at some point in life. I hope that what they’ve gained from these sessions will help them in the future.

In terms of the sixth goal, this is something that everybody had gotten better at. Through series of sessions, we became more comfortable with teaching and the methods of teaching etc. I feel that I was able to further improve the skill of teaching swimming through this project. I believe that this will help me in the next semester when we get another group of non-swimmers.

The seventh goal was the hardest challenge for me because of the language barrier. However, now I’m comfortable with interacting with them because I feel that I’ve got to know them better through many interactions, during the teaching time and during the playing time (water-polo). Other members (Yariq, Avin and Ravin) have helped me to translate into Sinhalese, so this was one of the reasons for being able to interact and get to know them well.

Overall, Sunflower Project has been a successful one this semester. I was able to achieve almost all the goals that I’ve set at the beginning, and it was certainly a very valuable experience and time which will become useful at some point in the future. There are several weaknesses that we have discovered, and these are the things that we hope to improve in the next semester. I’m looking forward to the next semester when we get a new group of non-swimmers and teach them about swimming and technology!

Sunflower Project Update 6

The recent sessions have been going very successful and in terms of the children’s swimming ability, it has improved dramatically compared to the beginning of this semester. We have been mainly giving them more and more practice, and giving them little tips and advice when we find something that they’re doing wrong, or can improve if they change something.

Teaching a non-swimmer to swim is a challenge, but so far, our group has done a great job, and so have the children. All of us are showing perseverance and commitment in this project by attending each week, and giving hands to help the children to improve their swimming skills. It is not just Avin and I, who initiate and plan what we do each session, but the rest of the group also make suggestions on what we can do. There is a great collaboration within our group and we’re facing and accomplishing challenges together. Through many sessions, I believe all of us have developed our strength in teaching and this skill can certainly be used at some point in life.

In terms of teaching the fundamental computer skills, it hasn’t been going as successful as we have hoped. We have been mainly concentrating on typing using a typing software, but some of the children are getting bored and want to spend more time swimming rather than learning about computers. This teaching computer fundamentals to the children was a new idea that we have decided to add, but since this is our first time, it hasn’t been very well-organized, and this is an area that we need to improve for the next semester’s group of children.

That said, the most important element of this project is teaching non-swimmers how to swim, and this has been successful without a doubt. There are two children who still are struggling to swim, but the rest can now swim well enough to go from one side of the pool to the other (the width). I hope to give my maximum effort until this semester’s last session and help the children to gain the maximum out of this project.