By Lehara Edirisinghe
The Beach Clean-up, which took place on the 12th of March at Mount Lavinia Beach was a long-awaited outing of the Form 4s, having been previously canceled for COVID-19 related reasons. (As a result of the last academic year being spent primarily online, the Form 4s had their Community Service project this year, though the project is usually only meant for the Middle School). The excursion provided for some much-needed team building within the grade and an opportunity to give back.
Students of Form 4, Neha Heiyantuduwa and Abdullah Yusoof briefly described the events of the day: the students arrived there at 6AM and were given garbage bags and gloves. Then, they were divided into groups and told to clean different sections of the beach. They cleaned for about an hour and were then given some time to bond as a grade.
The two students shared their views on the real purpose of the beach clean-up. Yusoof argued that even though he knew the beach would only get dirty again after they'd left, he felt that the Clean-up helped build relationships within the grade. He also felt that it showed there was more work to do regarding our commitment towards the environment “there is a real need to help give back to society.”
Heiyantuduwa expressed that she too, felt that there was greater awareness on the importance of being mindful of one’s environment “We definitely learnt to be more careful with our surroundings. Our beaches were really dirty.” She also felt that they had made a difference, because a lot of people had seen the student's effort to keep the beach clean, “hopefully people understand that we shouldn’t dirty our country.”
At the end of the day, the students had their fun as well, “A lot of us fell on the sand [while playing Kabbadi] and started screaming which was funny – and disgusting.”
“We played kabaddi, a lot of people were tackled, don’t put that in.”
All in all, it was a learning experience, and one the Form 4s were grateful to benefit from.
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