Week Without Walls

Global Issue

Week Without Walls is a week set aside by OSC for learning outside the class ranging from outdoor education for the lower grades to community service for higher grades. This year Grade 11 visited two preschools in Hambantota which had been built and financed by OSC after the tsunami in 2004. The tsunami affected many countries and thousands of people. Through this project we were responding to the issue of poverty as well as recovery after the tsunami.

New Challenge

This was a new challenge for me since I had not been involved in big community service projects before. In addition, I was the leader of my group and I was responsible for the organization of the gifts, supervising the clean up and re-painting work done by my group, motivating them and communicating with the villagers. 

Planning and Initiative

As the leader I had to organize the gift packages along with my co-leader and the leaders of the other group. We collected SLR 1000 from each person in the grade and decided to buy a doll/ car, school bag, tshirt and assorted stationery items for each child. I got the toys from Pettah, a local market where things are really cheap, the tshirts from Pamunuwa also for a lower price and the bags by a reputed bag making company, P.G. Martins, for cost price. All the leaders went out and got the stationary items and together with the rest of the grade we packed everything in the school bags. We did this before we left so we would not have to be worried about the gifts in Hambantota. Both schools had two blank walls so we planned the drawings for the murals in school. We also planned the performance for the final day so we could take whatever we required with us.

Day 1 - Leave OSC and arrive at the Peacock beach hotel in Hmbantota
Day 2 - Meet the kids and start work!
Day 3 - Continue working
Day 4 - Touch ups in the morning with a performance by the preschoolers in the afternoon
Day 5 - Homeward bound

Collaboration, Perseverance & Commitment

My group worked really hard on the two full days we had. Our target was to get most of the work done in two days and on the third day do touch ups and neatening in the morning as the performance by the kids was in the afternoon. I delegated the work as inside walls, outside walls and playground equipment. I gave the highest walls to the boys and the more delicate work like the grills which required patience to clean to the girls. I was really impressed by the way everyone worked collaboratively helping each other out when a problem arose. The heat really affected us by midday but we kept working as managed to finish most of the work on target.

Develop New Skills, Awareness of Strengths & Areas for Growth

Through WWW I developed leadership skills. It was quite a stretch as I had to keep tabs on what everyone was doing, responding to the mothers and the teachers of the preschool as well as contributing to the work being done. I get very irritable when its hot so I had to watch my temper. I also learnt to tactfully deal with other, hot, irritable people since by evening we were all exhausted and the dry heat was very hard on all of us, especially the foreigners. I learnt how to paint a wall! (:

Ethical Implications

Working for those kids and being with them was an extremely full filling experience, one that I will treasure all my life. Even though we did some great service I am forced to think whether it was a practical use of the money as the school spent a lot of money on our hotel and transport. I feel that money could have been used to benefit those villagers and we could have undertaken a project closer to school.