Versus Cancer

Hope for Kid's fundraising concert 'Versus Cancer' was a huge effort by the organising committe especially considering that the concert was in the first semester of grade 12, the semester which has the heaviest load of work.

Global Importance
Cancer is a global issue which effects millions of people worlwide. Hope for Kids focuses on the child patients of the Maharagama Cancer Institute.

New Challenge
Malindie and I have had a brief, minor experience in organising a concert with the interact club of our previous school but this was a big challenge for us and the rest of the committee. Our concert not only involved the OSC community but outside schools as well. Publicity and logistic aspects of the concert were also major challenges.

Planning and Initiation
OSC had not had a student-organized concert of this scale before. As the co-leader of the service group, my main aims were to raise money (targeted amount SLR 175,000) and to increase OSC's interaction with other schools. We started planning for the concert 3 months ahead in May. I delegated the work among the members of the committee as Priyanka - Publicity, Tara and Thishakya - Sponsorships and Malindie and I handled light and sound equipment and performers. However this delegation did not mean we couldn't help each other but ensured someone was responsible for completing the work.We also planned to get awareness t-shirts done in time for the concert.

Developed Skills, Awareness of Strengths & Areas for Growth
Pulling this concert together required an immense effort considering my organizing committee wasn't very strong.

• I had to learn the rather tedious process of going through several levels for approval to do anything. Things didn't happen as fast as I wanted them to sometimes and I tended to get impatient. For example even the simple task of drafting a letter required Mr. Coles' and Mrs. Williams' signatures, Mr. Coles' had to proof read it and I had to run between the councellor's secretary and the printing office.
• I became very good at drawing on personal connections and other people's connections to get things done. For example, our printing was sponsored by a parent from the primary school and I was able to contact performers who I knew were good. I also got the tshirts printed for cost price through one of my father's friends.In addition, the photographs of the childern were done for free by one of my friend's sister who is a professional photographer.
• During the process of putting up posters and promoting the concert I learnt how to deal appropriately with different people and what to say to appeal to them and how to get things done. For example I was on my own at Jazz Sunday at the CR and FC grounds and had to deal with the manager.
• I also learnt to weigh the situation and act practically and take decisions quickly. The initial estimates for sound equipment I got were for SLR 100,000 but Mr. Rana the auditorium manager got it done for SLR 30,000. At Jazz Sunday I quickly realized people weren't responding to the posters so I spoke to the manager got the poster photocopied and handed it out as a flyer.
• I also became acutely aware of the fact that things do go wrong despite the most meticulous planning.
• Time management was a key skill I had to master to cope with school work and the concert work.
• Keeping accounts, especially after the concert when dealing with ticket sales, was stressful but I learnt to keep a track of every inflow and outflow of money and to have a record with the business office.

Perseverance and Committment
 I had a lot of pressure from my parents to focus more on my school work because we were in the middle of important coursework. We also faced numerous problems in the organisation process. Despite the difficulties within the committee itself and coping with internal assessments, I managed to carry out my objective and the concert was a great success. We raised nearly SLR 250,000, well over my maximum target.

Ethical Implications
There were many personal issues and differences within the committee which reduced my morale at times. The word I had delegated was not done and I ended up doing the bulk of the work. By nature I am a hot tempered person but my co-leader, who is also my best-friend, is very calm and together we dealt with the issues to the best of our ability. We tried our best not to carry the issues into other aspects of school and get teachers involved and resolve our conflicts in a mature manner. Even though we had our differences, I was really impressed with the way everyone on the committee pulled together on the day of the concert. The fact that we worked collaboratively and everything flowed smoothly was what made the concert successful.

Seconds (:

So I finally put some of my photos on MSN's Skydrive.. I tried to create a Flickr account but the internet is being an annoyance and technology is against me, as usual.

I love taking photos! I'm very picky about light and angles and photography really interests me.. These are some pictures I have taken over the past year..

http://cid-bdae6da55b0bd047.skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?page=play&resid=BDAE6DA55B0BD047!110&authkey=OEHxlWgphJg%24

Versus Cancer

This video was created by Upandha Udalagama for the concert. This is what we opened the show with so the audience had a clear idea of our cause and what we were doing at the Cancer Hospital as a group.

And the day was saved byyy…. Facebook!

Murphy’s Law - Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

Ms. Shameela had a brilliant idea to get pictures of the kids and blow them and display them in the foyer of the auditorium on the night of the concert. Since we needed really good quality photos I contacted my friend’s sister, Natalie Soysa, who is a professional photographer. She agreed to do it for free but we had to organize transport for her. So I told Ms. Shameela to organize a school van to go pick her up on Thursday since the group was planning to go to the hospital on Thursday, our first visit to the hospital this semester.

Since during these few months of organizing I’ve learnt to double check and that things  WILL go wrong at the last minute I went and checked with Ms. Shameela during lunch…. and found that she hadn’t organized anything! We both went to see Ms. Tanuja… and found out she hadn’t booked a van for Hope for Kids to go to the hospital! Ms. Shameela quickly ran around and sorted out the transport after a lot of begging and sweet talk.

Meanwhile I had to get in touch with Natalie to inform her of the time the van would be there to pick her up… and my phone died on me! And when I put my sim in Malindie’s phone I found I hadn’t saved Natalie’s number on the sim card’s memory. So I tried Facebook for Natalie’s number and then sent her a message hoping to god she’ll be on Facebook….

Malindie was busy Googling her and going through her Flicker, Twitter and Facebook for the number. She even tried online telephone directories! And I was next to her texting people hoping they’d know some way I could get in touch with her and calling all sorts of people to ask if they knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who might know Natalie’s number….

And then she replied on Facebook!

So after a few complications we all got to the hospital… to find the playroom padlocked and no one had the key! So we got some kids to come down and we played with them in the garden. We learnt that the playroom had been shut for three months now since the teacher we employed had a baby and she hasn’t been coming. It’s really not fair to expect her to come but we have to find a new teacher soon. They playroom can’t be shut up depriving the kids of some place to play.

Natalie was taking pictures of the kids… and some attendant starts yelling and making a scene that we can’t take pictures! I tried explaining to him that we had the director Dr. Kanisha’s permission but he kept insisting for a form. So I got Ms. Shameela on the phone and he calmed down. Finally.

But we had a nice time with the kids and I’m sure we got some lovely pictures. When we went up to the ward me and Thishakya saw a child not even a year old and we both felt so sick. A child that young having cancer! I held a little girl who had leukemia and I felt so sorry for her and the mother. The girl had the most beautiful eyes.

Really, we have no right to complain about life. 

Poster Pasting

We got the posters and tickets today! Along with Ms. Tanuja, the girls in the committee and some boys from other schools who were performing we went around Colombo putting up posters. I had spoken to Ms. Shameela and organized a van for us and I also prepared a list of places grouped by the areas they were in. First, we went to Water’s Edge and gave them a few posters along with a ticket book. We then continued on to Colombo. Ms Tanuja dropped us at Odel and went to CR&FC to ask if we could sell tickets at Jazz on Sunday. Jazz is quite a popular event at the CR&FC grounds to which all the young people flock to. This would an excellent opportunity for us to spread the word. While she was doing that I split us up into 3 groups. Malindie and Stephan stayed at Odel and put up a poster and talked to them about selling tickets at Odel. Arun and Priyanka went to CoCo Verandah which was a 2 minute walk away. Amit, Kasun and I went to Budz, a nearby restaurant. We also put us posters at 2 popular salons on the way. Ms Tanuja came shortly and we headed off to the area of Colombo where the hotels were located. Tara and Priyanka were dropped off at Barefoot and me, Amit and Kasun got off at Mc Donalds. Amit and I walked all the way down Galle Road to the Cinnamon Grand putting up posters along the way! It was quite a tiring day and it was well past 1 when we got back to Pellawatte. 

Excercise and Quality Time (=

During the summer I have been taking daily walks in the morning often with my mother. As well as good exercise for both of us, it has become a mother-daughter bonding time away from the cares of the housework and my four year old brother. My grandmother is diabetic and overweight and she came for a week to my house and somehow never left. Her health problems have scared me and my mum into eating healthy and getting some sort of regular exercise. I have also been doing Pilates for 45 minutes twice or thrice a week. It is difficult but I’ve noticed I’ve become more flexible. 

Versus Cancer

It’s the end of the summer and now I fully realize the gravity of Ms. William’s words as she gave me approval for the charity concert and told me “You getting yourself into a lot of work.” Getting permission and drafting the proposal to be put forward to Mr. Coles and Ms. Williams was itself quite a task. Next I had to draft invitation letters to be sent to the local schools requesting their participation, get them approved by Mr. Coles and mailing them. It didn’t end there as I had to chase after certain people from the schools principals, friends, interact presidents and so on.

Organizing auditions was a real learning process as I didn’t realize how many people are involved and how many peoples’ co-operation is required to make something work. In this case I had to get Mr. Coles and Ms. Williams approval and then notify Mr. Chithra (head of security) and work out a convenient time with Mr. Kolitha (head of maintenance) and Mr. Rana (auditorium manager). There was a lot of emailing and I learnt that the proper procedure has to be followed and you can get peoples’ cooperation by being open, flexible and just being nice. We had auditions in the OSC auditorium on the 10^th of June and the 24^th of July. The second audition started off with a lesson that everything that can go wrong will go wrong. I had a presentiment that day and unfortunately I couldn’t get to school early like I planned. When I got to school I found that Mr. Rana had completely forgotten about the auditions, the security didn’t know what was going on and they had started maintenance work in the auditorium so the place was a mess! But the guards were cooperative and I managed to scare the workers into finding me at least 2 mics and 2 industrial fans (:

Getting sponsorships was a relatively easy task as Ms. Dilhara from the administrative office handled sending the letters. But at the moment we have Mobitel as our premium sponsor and The Sunday Times as our print media sponsor and I am a bit worried as we need more money. The sound equipment will cost around Rs. 60,000 and the printing cost will be around Rs. 20,000. That’s a total cost of around Rs. 80,000 and we only have Rs. 30,000. 

We are human beings not savages.

After the Colombo Model United Nations conference ended I suggested starting a debating activity to Ms. Wolfe with Mr. O’Kane as the teacher sponsor. I became the student leader of the activity. Unfortunately I couldn’t do much since activities were disrupted by changes in the time table, exams and holidays. However we did debate a local issue which turned out to be quite a heated debate.

In May the local media was in an uproar over the case of a mother throwing her baby in the Kelaniya river. The mother was convicted of murder and sentenced to prison. The mother’s action does sound horrendous until you look into the details of the hardships they had to endure. This 3 year old boy was the youngest of 5 siblings. The father, a heavily indebted alcoholic, had left the family and only returned infrequently to steal the little money the mother managed to scrape by selling lottery tickets. While he was with her he was in the habit of drinking heavily and coming home to beat her up brutally. The mother is also a tsunami victim. Unable to feed the children, she had repeatedly tried to hand over the child to the government probation office, the police, and orphanages and even tried leaving him at the Kelaniya temple in the hope that someone would care for him. This incident happened one day after a failed attempt at leaving him at the temple. When crossing the bridge she threw him into the river on impulse. He was rescued by a trishaw driver and was in the ICU for a few days before he passed away.

The local media was very biased towards the child and hardly anyone empathized with the mother. I supported her because I have a little brother of 4 and I know how the child crying can get on your nerves at time and I amplified this and was able to imagine what it would be like for a clinically depressed woman in an abusive relationship living in bad living conditions with 5 children solely dependant on her.

There was a clear divide among the group. I was really annoyed with the opposition members who actually believed she should be tried for murder! My point was that she should be put through a rehabilitation process and given back the other 4 children. And what enraged me even more was the hypocrisy of the Sri Lankan government. After this incident the probation office, which had refused the child, took custody of the other FOUR children. In Sri Lanka an average of 2 children are killed per week simply because their parents cannot provide them with food for survival. With such a glaring problem the government should be addressing the wider issue of poverty rather than trying to throw an already clinically depressed woman into jail!

Stretch!

Last Monday I joined the after school dancing activity, partly because I was forced to and partly because I need the hours. This traditional Sri Lankan dancing activity is conducted by Mr. Malith and Mr. Hashan who are professional dancers. There were a lot of stretching exercises involved and some demanded co'ordination and balance. I am not the most co-ordinated, graceful person and I had a lot of fun laughing at myself. My legs hurt so much after the strenuous stretching exercises! 

The next day I joined the after school yoga activity which is also conducted by Mr. Malith. Again this demanded a lot of balance and concentration which I hope to achieve over time. I'm hoping the combined effects of the dancing and yoga will help me to firm up my muscles and be in a reasonably good shape. 

Up =)

• We had the primary movie afternoon today in the PMPR at 3.00 pm to 4.30 pm. 
• 30 kids showed up and we collected a total of Rs. 10,200. 
• The movie we showed was 'Up' a really fascinating movie about an old man and a house with balloons attached to it that flies by Pixar.

I asked the canteen to make the drinks for us and I gave them a cordial bottle this morning. I was depending on them to have empty mega bottle but unfortunately they had just got rid of the yesterday! So I salvaged two mega bottles from the recycling room which I gave to Rukshan to wash and fill with the drink. I spoke to Rukshan and he gave us 30 packets of popcorn for Rs. 25 each.

We have noticed that the clothes lines at the hospital are not enough and the mothers tend to hang their washing out on bushes and railings. Most of these clothes end up on the ground raising hygienic concerns. I spoke to Mr. Kolitha and got 4 wooden poles and nylon rope along with a mason's spade, a crowbar and some cement reasy to take to the hospital last evening. But unfortunately we couldn't set the lines up without permission from the director, Dr. (Mrs.) Yoganathan. I sent her a letter asking permission today and I hope she gets back to us soon. In the letter I also asked to meet her next Thursday if possible.

The Crucible

'The Crucible' by Aurthur Miller was a production by the Visual Art and English Department of OSC directed by Ms. Abeywardena. It is a play about the hysteria whipped up by the witch hunts in Salem, Massachusetts. The play is set in a Puritan society where social norms almost constrict the people. Abigail, a young girl enraged when her clandestine affair with her employer, John Proctor, is terminated by him starts a witch hunt. Her ulterior motive is to accuse Elizabeth, Proctor's wife, and have her hung as revenge for dismissing her from her position as a maid in the Proctor household. The witch hunt is soon blown out of proportion and the whole village descends into hysteria. The play also functions as a political allegory for the hysteria created by McCarthyism in the late 1940's.

I was cast for the role of Tituba. Tituba is a black slave from the Caribbean. Though she is a minor character, she plays a key role in the play in that she knows witch craft such as conjuring spirits and communicating with the devil and introduces it to the girls.Even with my advantage as a drama student, this was an extremely challenging role for me, especially in terms of the characterization of a black slave. In addition, we choreographed a movement piece for the opening of the play. I am not the most flexible, graceful person on earth and adopting the raw physicality of Tituba was a challenge. But I managed to play Tituba quite sucessfully and I was extremely pleased with the extent to which I grew as a performer by widening my skills.

Cancer is a word, not a sentence

We organized a secondary movie afternoon today to raise funds for the Cancer Hospital. It was in the auditorium at 3.00 pm. Entrance was Rs. 250/- and brownies were sold at Rs. 50/-.

We raised approximately Rs. 5000/-.

Approximately 5 people showed up, apart from the Cancer Hospital people. I am extremely disappointed by OSC's lack of enthusiasm for ANYTHING.

To publicize the even I created a Facebook event and had the poster included in the newsletter and the daily bulletin. We put up posters around school and told a lot of people about the movie afternoon. Today during both breaks I went around telling people to come support us. Some people were nice enough to donate money even though they could not make it.

Our next project will be a joint charity concert with the Interact Club of Royal College. We are planning to have it in early September in the OSC auditorium. We also plan to have performances by local bands and performances by the students of OSC and other invited schools.


We also plan to get awareness t-shirts done and hopefully put it on sale at ODEL. A slogan I found on the internet which I think is very powerful is - Cancer is a word, not a sentence.

Food & Fun Fair - 13th March

The FFF is an exellent opportunity to fund raise for CAS projects. SO, we exploited it (: To raise funds for the Cancer Hospital Project we sold yellow awareness hair ribbons and bracelets for Rs. 50/- each. We also painted a yellow sun, the Hope for Kids logo, with face paint for Rs. 50/- The face paint was more of an awareness raising idea as the sun is a common feature we found in all of the kids' drawings. They always always draw a sun. Maybe it's a symbol of hope for them. I walked around the whole time selling the ribbons and I was very tired, especially since it was very hot and the SGA ran out of drinks! We raised approximately Rs. 6000/- (:

Developing Diplomatic Relations (:

Colombo Operated Model United Nations Conference March 5th – 7th 2010


Day 1 | Committee 3

The opening ceremony really set the mood for this year’s conference with the address by the representative from the IOM and the anti-trafficking videos that were played. The atmosphere of my committee was very serious and focused but it was not intimidating, as in the practice debates, because I had got to know more people and I knew they were role playing. I was excited and well prepared. I spoke a few times during the first day but I couldn't really talk much since we the topic under discussion was 'Assessing and addressing the treatment of women’s rights in the founding of the family, its sustenance and its dissolution' and Nigeria follows Shari'a law which was constantly under attack. Also, the Penal Code of Nigeria states that 'a man can beat a woman up as long as it does not result in grievous harm'. Not very female-friendly, now is that? Even though I didn't talk that much I learnt a lot about the extent of the problem and how it can be addressed. I also learnt the importance of working efficiently within a limited amount of time as we had to submit a resolution in 45 minutes. 


Day 2 | Committee 3 


The topic for the second day, after we had finished debating the resolutions from the previous day, was 'Addressing the vulnerability of refugees to human trafficking'. I had researched this topic quite well and was able to make a speech on the speakers' list as well as talk during moderated caucus and ask several POI's (Point of Information). Talking in front of everyone was really scary but I stood up to the challenge. I was kind of threatened by the Secretary General and the Head of Finance and was forced to talk. After the first time I got behind the podium, my fear seemed to disappear and I gained confidence the more I spoke. I felt more at ease on the second day since I had got to know people better.Unfortunately, we had to rush the discussion as we were running out of time. 

Day 3 | General Assembly 


The conference on the third day was held at The Water's Edge. It was very formal, the girls were in sarees, and the food was really good. I think the GA was a bit of a failure since while one committee is in session the other committees have nothing to do and are bored. Com 2 dealt with economic policies and sitting through their session was torture. I think Com 3 is the most interesting since it is the Human Rights committee and it is easy to relate to and be actively engaged in. Also it is way too many people and frequently the people at the back are not recognized at all. The chairs introduced an 'emergence topic' for all committees to debate and it was a situation where there was a conflict between China and Taiwan which escalated into a near nuclear catastrophe. Yes, their idea was World War III. I really got ridiculous towards the end and I gave a very impassioned speech about what I felt. I was so proud of myself because I spoke twice in the GA in front of aall those people and I made some good points. Aand the best part was when I got a not from the President of GA, Yohan, saying that he was very proud of what I have achieved and that I have improved a lot (: It was really tiring though and at the end of it I was really exhausted. I can only imagine how exhausted the organising committee would have been. 


After it was all over, I wished I could do it all over again. 
CO-MUN 2010 was an awesome experince (: 

Diplomats In The Making

MUN last semester was a very informative and engaging experience. We started off the semester looking at Marginalized People and Human Trafficking around the world. We were assigned temporary countries until the countries for the conference were finalized and mine was Myanmar. Mr. O’Kane showed us a YouTube clip of Human Trafficking about how and why it takes place. It had model scenarios and was truly horrifying. I have a four year old brother and the part on child trafficking really got to me since I could relate to the fear, anger and panic of the mother who lost her child. We were then asked to define human trafficking in our own words but in a manner which was precise and concise as a practice of how to word things in actual MUN.We were also taught how to word tricky issues diplomatically, say for example if your country is not really making an effort to rectify and issue instead of saying 'We're not doing anything' you could say that 'The government of ... is trying its best but are not seeing any results yet' or 'The government of ... is currently not in a stable financial position but..'

Then we went on to debate Genetically Modified Food. It was hard to research the government of Myanmar’s stance on GM food as the country doesn’t have a major role in the research, development and use of GM Foods unlike the US, whose stance would be a very obvious one. However I found that Myanmar has a neutral stance, leaning towards favouring the development of GM food but does not consume or grow GM produce in the country as they have a sufficient food supply. We divided into two groups and wrote up a resolution and debated the issue.

My country for the MUN conference is Nigeria and I am in the 3^rd committee. I have been researching Nigeria over the Christmas break with regard to its history, economy and cultural and social issues, current and past.

Proud To Be A Sri Lankan (:

Creating and performing the Sri Lanka UN Day performance was a fun filled process. At first the teachers in charge wanted to do a traditional Kandyan dance but Yanika and I thought we should do something different this year and focus on a different aspect of being a Sri Lankan; baila. We had to put in a lot of time in to the rehearsals in the form of lunch breaks and after school. The teachers decided that we would sing a song ‘Apa wemu Sri Lanka’ (We are Sri Lanka) by Shohan, a Sri Lankan artist. Yanika and I were adamant about including baila and we had the perfect song in mind; the recently released ‘Rambari’ which is popular among Sri Lankans of all ages. The plan was to introduce the presentation with a Kandyan dance by Thishakya, Sandali and Nadeera, while we paraded our Sri Lankan attire, followed by us singing the song ending with the baila. I thought the fashion show thing was a bit too much, a waste of time and pointless really. We were crowding too much into a 10 minute presentation. I really enjoyed discussing my ideas with Ms. Kithmini and Mrs. Illaperuma and helping to shape the presentation.

On the day of the rehearsal in the auditorium, two lawyers, friends of Yanika’s father, saw our performance and thought the baila was pathetic and offered to help us. Ruwinda, Shamith, Sala, Yanika and I stayed after school and we, with the two uncles help, choreographed the dance. It was really fun as those two are very fun loving and nice. We told the rest of the group what we had planned and with certain other ideas and variations they had we managed to choreograph a great dance. It was a bit hard since most people left early during rehearsals for SAISA practices and some just weren’t committed enough. Some others wouldn’t voice their opinion and help in the process of shaping the dance but rather grumbled behind the backs of people who were actively involved. It really annoyed me. I learnt new dance moves and to work collaboratively and compromise. The dance had a lot of typical Sri Lankan humour like the end when I went to the front of the stage and called Umeshan out of the boys very flirtatiously and then Anisha, who was my mother, came out and saw us and was very mad at Umeshan and dragged me off. It’s the typical Sri Lankan lover scenario. She was originally going to whack Umeshan with a broom but the organizers were against ‘showing violence on stage with could have cultural implications and have the potential to offend’.

Our presentation was the opening performance as Sri Lanka is the host country. It was a brilliant performance; full of spirit and we all had fun (:

What does an attacker do?? Mr. Shipleeyy??!

Football wasn’t a very successful affair since I missed a lot of practices due to drama rehearsals and practices for the UN Day Sri Lankan presentation. The three practices I went for really pushed me because I don’t have good stamina and I hadn’t played football before. I learnt a few skills when we did drills and I did learnt more about the importance of teamwork. In the few games I played I noticed that when the girls didn’t pull together and tried to put on a one man show that side did badly. For a person who was told to play an attacker without knowing the first thing about football I think I did pretty well. I really like the game and if I had continued with the practices I would have actually been able to play at a decent level.