Suhastha '15

“Suhatha - 2015” was successfully concluded on 14^th and 15^th of November 2015 on Walimada area targeting ordinary level students in the area by the 13^th batch Civil Department. This was one of the most effective and best programs concluded by the Civil Engineering society of University of Moratuwa during this year. Previous year the seminar series was initiated to conduct in two languages in Sinhalese and Tamil. This year the same tradition was continued. The Sinhala seminar was at Nadhagamuwa Maha Viddayala with the participation of another Sinhala school ‘Landegama Maha viddyala’ and the Tamil seminar was at Walimada Tamil Viddyala with the participation of six Tamil medium schools.

When the idea was came upon it was not only to the seminar and come back, but there must be something other than doing the seminar. Something will remain in the minds of the students for so many years. Because of that it was suggested to donate books to the two libraries of the schools.

We planned to do seminars for three subjects for “Science, English, and Mathematics” which foe our knowledge was the weakest of the students in the area. We understood that discussing a paper was not enough because of that a tutorial was arranged for the benefit of the children to do at home. It was arranged covering all the parts of the syllabus and giving priority to important parts in the syllabus

.

Although most of the planning was done easily funding the project was bit difficult. In order to do so a ticket was sold among the pubic to collect donations from the people. All the colleagues of 13^th batch Civil Department helped in funding this. 

The schools were bit far away from the Walimada town and reaching the schools were bit difficult. But the beauty of the nature made us forget all the difficulties we had.

The seminars were due to start at 8am onward until 4pm afternoon. The first day was planned to do seminar on science and English and the second date was focused on Mathematics.

Separate papers for each subtopics of the science subject was given and three different colleagues conducted the seminar and others were helping to do so. After the seminar tutorials were distributed to the students for practice until the exams.

Due to lack of time English seminar was as a two part seminar and 1^st part and the evening of the first day and morning at the second date. 1^st day it was mainly about grammar and 2^nd day was about how to collect marks easily and the parts that should have a special care.

The main target was on the second date was mathematics and important points were discussed firstly and later every student was given a mentor to improve their knowledge and to reduce the mistakes of those children. Weaker students were given special attention rather than learning new things they were taught to reduce the mistakes there were doing. 

All together there were 30 or 40 groups which was more effective.

At the end a mentoring program was held for students and questions about their life were answered and ways to build up their life after the exams, what are the possibilities and new opportunities of life were introduced.

At the end after a simple ceremony books were given to the principles of the two schools. The principle in his speech thanks all the organizers for their massive effort and dedicating their useful time on these children. He encouraged us to do there seminars all around the country. And also told that he will monitor the children on doing the tutorials.

On behalf of the students of the school the head prefect thanks all the organizers for choosing a rural school like theirs and promised that they will do their best on the upcoming exams.

 A parent in his speech thanked everyone with for helping their children and most of them are farmers and society think that their children should be farmers after them. 

But we changed that attitude on their mind. We requested the students to give a feedback on our seminar and everyone were thankful for our cause and encouraged us to carry on in big scale.

We are hoping an improvement on their life and their studies and we are hoping to do the same next year with a much more advanced plan with the experiences gained from this project.

All together this can be said as the most successful project done by the Civil 13^th batch and we are hoping to continue this humanitarian projects. And thankful for all the colleagues who helped in organizing participating for this project.