We care

Students at the Overseas Children's School have brought sunshine into the lives of many less fortunate than themselves. Kumudini Hettiarachchi finds out about the school's community service projects that have taken them even behind prison walls.....

"I feel happy and content when I do such types of jobs for small children. After going there for around 2 months, I felt like a family member. People know you and you know them and when we see each other, it is like meeting after a long time.

"Well I would like to thank God for developing me in a good and happy family. But I am pretty much angry at God as well. Those children will never experience the life we live_..."

These are the thoughts of 15-year-old Kartik Garg from India, who along with a number of other children his age visits the women's section of the Welikada prison once a week. These teenagers, who would normally spend their leisure time engaged in what affluent children do, devote a part of a day every week to play, teach and feed the children of the women prisoners. What is most moving is that they enjoy doing so.

They have given spoons to the "prison children" but those have gone missing. So what do they do? When they have to feed the infants cereal, which by the way is not provided by the authorities but by these teenagers themselves, they wash their hands, dip their fingers in the cereal and let them (prison children) lick it off.

Who are these children who act with love and dedication? From the time I heard that some schoolchildren were visiting the prisons, I was interested to find out more. These children are from the oldest international school - the Overseas Children's School (OCS), established way back in 1957.

Seated in the spacious cafeteria of the OCS I was amazed at the number of community service projects these children from posh and varied backgrounds were engaged in. As the school's Community Service Coordinator, Mrs. Cassima Jurampathy explains, though the Creative. Action Service (CAS) Programme is a compulsory part of the International Baccalaureate Programme, the enthusiasm with which that is carried out by the senior students is amazing.

Following the success of this programme, the concept of community service has now been introduced to all categories of students resulting in five major ongoing projects in addition to many others.

They are:
The Prison Babies Project
The Temple School Project
The Sunflower Village Project
The Helping Hands Project
The Project to Refurbish Clarendon's Children's Home at Mount Lavinia
Under the Prison Babies Project, 10 OCS students in the age-group not only play, teach and feed the babies, but have also painted the walls of the pre-school within the drab walls of the prison to make it cheery and bright. They have also sponsored a teacher from Sarvodaya to teach at the pre-school by paying her Rs. 1,500 a month.

Not satisfied with that, these children save their pocket money and buy cereal, fruit and rusks for the forgotten babies and knick-knacks such as pencils, crayons and worksheets for the older children. Chipping in, the younger students of OCS make pencil-holders, small boxes etc during the art and craft period and present them to these kids.

Clothes and other essentials are also collected and gifted to the prison children who have no clothes except what kind souls give them and no cots or even mats to sleep on. Getting to know that these unfortunate children have never seen coloured drinks, the students also provide them with food and drink whenever possible.

It is easy for affluent children to give money, which they get from their parents to the needy, but to decide to have their teen birthday party in the prison is something unique. That's just what some of them have done.

The wonderful part is that it is also not just giving. Last year, the prison children had held a performance for the OCS students.

The other projects are similar, but unique in their own right. Under the Temple School Project, some OCS students have taken about 100 needy children who attend a pre-school run by a temple under their wing. During their weekly visits to the pre-school they spend time with the tots, interact with them, teach them and also celebrate all festivals with them. They have provided the sparsely furnished pre-school with a blackboard, some furniture and even a climbing frame. The Sunflower Village Project has given the students of OCS a chance to interact with "special" children. Earlier, the students had gone to Sunflower Village, but now those children, around 30, come to OCS not only to have fun but also to use the swimming pool for hydro-therapy and the computer facility to improve their skills.

There is one OCS student for each of the physically handicapped children from Sunflower Village, so it is a one-on-one policy. Seeing them frolicking in the swimming pool it is difficult to distinguish which child enjoys it more, according to Mrs. Jurampathy.

Based on the "buddy system," the Helping Hands Project of the students of Grade 3 to 5, is for street children in a school in Borella. The students interact on a one-on-one basis with the street children, play games and teach them English, while trying out their Sinhala on them. Like the other projects the street children too go over to OCS and all are "one".

Glancing through the bulging photo-albums on the projects it was difficult to distinguish one from the other.

The toughest project carried out by the oldest student group was the once-a-year "adoption" programme, under which they would spend three weekends of the year scraping, sand-papering, repairing, mixing the paint and painting a children's home. They have adopted the Clarendon Home in Mount Lavinia and gain satisfaction only because they can see the end result of their manual work. For them it also means a certain amount of discipline. They learn every aspect of the job and are not done, until the paint brushes are washed and put away.

It is backbreaking work, though jointly done with the children from the home, - painting three dormitories, a sick room, the study area and the entrance. It does not end there. They continue to maintain these buildings and also train the next lot to takeover.

These projects have not gone unnoticed. According to Mrs. Jurampathy the International Baccalaureate (IB) Organization has commended the school's CAS programme. What is more, she will be making a presentation on the programme at a seminar for community service teachers from the region to be held in Bangkok in October. She has also been appointed to the advisory committee on the CAS IB programme which will meet in Geneva in January next year to improve the programmes in other countries, draw up a set of guidelines and review the ongoing projects.

As School Head Peter Gittins explained, community service is linked to the school's policy. "We hope to develop attitudes and values which transcend barriers of race, class, religion, gender or politics."

The school's philosophy is that education neither begins nor ends in the classroom or the examination hall, in fact the essential aspects of education may exist outside both, he stressed.

The greatness in teaching children to help other children is enhanced by the fact that they do not have a condescending attitude towards the less fortunate. As they themselves simply put it, "We would like to make them smile."

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