SUHASTHA-2018
Suhastha is the O/L seminar session organized by civil engineering society of University of Moratuwa every year in order to support O/L students from schools in rural areas. Purpose of this was to support the students to face examination with more confidence. Knowledge sharing is the superior charity that anyone could perform in their life and this is the reason behind ‘Suhastha’.
This year we were able to make a difference in Suhastha which is renovating the school by painting the school premises and changing window glasses. Even though major objective was the O/L mathematics seminar, we were able to give gifts to all the other grade students this time. This was made possible with the support of the staff of the department of Civil engineering of UOM.
We selected the Handawalpitiya Kanishta Vidyalaya and Vivekananda TMV in Hanguranketha region for the project and have made a pilot visit to those schools in order to get the statistics of students count, wall area of school to be painted etc. There were 228 students in primary and 170 students in secondary level in the Handawalpitiya Kanishta Vidyalaya, where as there were 172 primary students and 203 secondary students in Vivekananda TMV.
We were able to collect funds through sales of ticket books, wrist bands and donations from well-wishes and staffs. Suhastha was conducted on 16th, 17th and 18th of November and 45 students from civil batch ’16 participated in the project. We left from the university in bus at 4.30am on 16th and reached the Sinhala School around 11.30 am. School principal and staff warmly welcomed us and appreciated us for having arranged such a seminar for their school students.
On the first day we organized a session of games and fun events for students and distributed their gifts. Students were very happy to play games with us and they volunteered to sing without any hesitation and we were amazed to see their eagerness to expose their talents. We gave the gifts at the end of the day and they all were very delighted to receive them. We couldn’t paint the school as planned due to heavy rain. We had all the groceries, which was cooked and served to all of us by the villagers and the school teachers.
Second day we separated our team in Handawelpitiya School into two groups and one team started the seminar whereas the other team started painting and renovating the school. Villagers said that it was the sunny day after several months which made us feel blessed by the God for our good service. On the second day, tamil team also started the seminar in Vivekananda TMV and students were highly enthusiastic to learn and answer the questions. Majority of them were very weak in mathematics and didn’t like the subject due to dirth of a mathematics teacher. But we tried our level best to teach them several areas of the syllabus. Our team boys worked from early in the morning till late night in painting and renovating the school forgetting pain, sleep and climate struggles.
Third day also we carried forward the seminar and renovation work successfully. The day was made more special by the visit of lecturers in our department. Prof. J.M.A. Manathunga, Prof. M.W.Jayaweera, Dr. W.B.Gunawardhana and Dr. R.L.H.L.Rajapaks visited Handawelpitiya Kanishta Vidyalaya and brought refreshment to the students of both the schools. They came travelling all the way from Colombo and once again proved us how willing they are to support and guide us in all the events as the back bone of the Civil Engineering Society.
Principal of Vivekananda TMV thanked us for taking this big step of helping O/L students in Mathematics. A student made the vote of thanks and said that they have understood the importance of learning Mathematics and promised to learn it more enthusiastically. Those words gave the full satisfaction of all our struggles to succeed the project.
Principal of Handawelpitiya Kanishta Vidyalaya conveyed their gratitude through his thanking speech and a souvenir. He was delighted to say that it was the first ever visit from university students to their school to help students. He appreciated us for creating the bond between school and the university. Finally, we sang songs with the school students and left from there around 4pm.
The road and transportation to the Tamil school was very difficult. There was no electricity and it made the traveling even worse in the night on the way back. Tiger threat also was there around the Tamil school area. But we didn’t feel the difficulty, rather felt the tragedies those students and people in those areas facing everyday even without basic facilities. It gave us strong feeling to help those students at least in academics.
We asked the students to write what they felt about last three days with us and their feedbacks showed us the success of 'Suhastha'. Even though we couldn’t teach them everything in two days, we were able to make a great change in their mind about learning, future and ambition.
Suhastha gave us a great experience and learning lesson of project management which gave us the capability and confidence of managing any future projects related to engineering. Suhastha taught us about power of team work, importance of learning, our social responsibilities and duty to serve the country. We learnt to have the courage to face and overcome any struggle that we might experience in life.
“SUHASTHA MOULDED NOT ONLY THOSE STUDENTS BUT ALSO US”
