Alzheimer's Service Group Next Leader

I recently had the chance to talk to the potential leader of the Alzheimer's group here at school next year after the current leader graduates. Yannis Grimm is currently in DP1 and has attended The Overseas School of Colombo (OSC) for two years. 

What was your first Alzheimer's center visit like? 

    On my first trip there was an old gentleman that I talked to, he was not as lucid as some. We covered topics such as his family and personal history. During the activities he poured tea onto his plate as he was painting and tried to drink the mixtures. It important to realise that these people are real people and not all of them are like what people stereotypically think an alzheimer's patients should be.

What was some of the stories that they told you? 

One of the ladies remembered me from last year, this really touched me because this was the first time someone had remembered me and after such a long time. On the last last visit to the centre I met a lady who I spent the whole trip talking to her. As we began to talk we got into our histories we discovered that we have lived and visited the same places and we could share the knowledge and stories. 

Do you enjoy this service?

            Yes, it is fun because we really get to interact with people. I find it quite rewarding and sometimes they don’t react as much as other people. But we get these times when they interact with us in a way that allow for them to truly connect. It’s hard sometimes because they sometimes lose track of what they saying. It’s important to remember to be curtsies and to ask questions that are not directed towards their condition.

Where you see yourself in the future for this group?

            Possibly leading position but I will join the group anyway because I think this an important to raise awareness about the condition and how to interact and behave around someone with. What happens sometime is that the person became dehumanised because they become the condition not the person.

Link to Yannis Grimm's CAS blog: https://casblogreflectingonpersonalandsocialiblife.wordpress.com

Spreading Awareness

 As a part of my service, The Pursuit of Happiness, one of our main aims is to create awareness about people and situations that have not been able to tell their stories. We also focus on the generating a meaning of conveying our messages. My part in the service is focusing on the service group that works with the Alzheimer's Centre in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Post of interview with Alzheimer's Centre member 

Post of interview with Alzheimer's Group leader

As a part of generating awareness booklets were also made up for each group or people that our service interviewed. One of the special parts of our service is our collaboration with other services/groups that allows fro us to create a wider scale awareness for the better of all involoved.

Alzheimer's Centre Booklet

Alzheimer's Centre Booklet

Alzheimer's Center Visit

On the 15th of October I visited the Alzheimer’s Centre in Colombo with the service group from school. It was a group of five and we spent most of the time at the centre doing activates with the patients. We do jigsaw puzzles and played pass the parcel. But most of the patients really enjoyed when we played music and danced with them. I really enjoyed going to the centre it really opened my eyes about the disease and how people who are affect are looked after. I saw how hard to was for some of them to interact with people and was able to view how important it was to care for these people. It is said that the worst thing to do about Alzheimer's is to neglect  the patient and issue. I was glad that I was personally able to engage with issues of global importance. 

This is an issue of global importance because Alzheimer’s is an issue worldwide with no permanent cure found yet. One of the main problems is the lack of support that main countries have for people and their families who are affected. The service leader of the group, Anjleen Hannak,  addressed this problem; “I want people to understand the seriousness of the problem and want to them to be aware of how to this can effect peoples lives because Alzheimer’s can happen to anyone.”

Photo Credits: Ysobella Grieve-Darcy

The Pursuit of Happiness Project

My service this semester is The Pursuit of Happiness. This service is inspired by the Humans of New York which is famous worldwide for sharing the stories of every day people. The services was founded by a fellow peer Hasith this year.

Our Mission: Our aspiration is to spread awareness about people and places in need, through the medium of visual biography. We hope to connect ‘you’ with seemingly far away realities thereby providing opportunities to make a difference.

This service allows it's participants to engaged with issues of global importance because we are addressing issues and groups that are in need or committed to helping the community. Some of the groups we interview are connected with helping people with disability or educating children. We are able to develop new skills because we work on developing photography skills. Looking at different lenses and how lighting affects the quality of the photographs. Another area that service has allowed me to improve on is working collaboratively with others, I have been allowed to working with people in my service and other services and this has made the service more enjoyable and worthwhile.

Link to our Facebook page were we share our work: https://www.facebook.com/tphserviceproject

Year 12 CAS Goals

This is my final year in IB and Sri Lanka and I want to make the best of this year with all its possibilities.

Creativity: For creativity this year I am participating in Drawing Club/Graphic Novel. My goal for this is to expand my art skills. I want to focus on learning and improving skills like, water colour painting, sketching and etching. These are skills that I have learnt previously and hope to improve this year to be more Knowledgeable . I will also be touching on creativity in my service group as we use photojournalism.

Action: For action this year I am on a Tuesday afternoon working out with a classmate in the gym area in the school. My goal for action is to become more healthy and fit so that I may lead a better healthy lifestyle. This action will go for 45 minutes every session and during the session I will have made a ready plan of what I will be doing that day.I want to live a more Balanced lifestyle.

Service: For service this year I have changed from my service group last year, The Forgotten Children, due to conflicting interests and an inability to complete any real service to the community. There was also a language barrier that prevent me and others in my group from creating meaningful connection that were very needed. The delicate nature of the subject that I was trying to create awareness about was also hindering the service group. 


This year my service is The Pursuit of Happiness Project, this project is inspired by the famous Humans of New York. In the project our aim is to spread awareness about the less fortunate (financially or health wise) through the medium of photojournalism . My goal for this service is to at the best of my ability spread awareness and people and places stories that might help give aid to these people. I want to be Open-minded about all issues and be a Caring person.

Spreading Awareness

On the 13th of March my service group The Forgotten Children we went to a local market and spent an hour handing out flyers to people at the market and to stalls. We also got emails of people present for us to be able to send more information and keep them up to date with of serivice. The trip was pretty good we managed to hand out almost all our flyers and we spread awareness of our project with a whole mass of people. What was a problem was that there were only so many people at the market and we often found that people we talked to had already spoken to one of our member. A good thing for next time would be to split up and take two different places to be able to spread more awareness about what we do and how people can help.

TFC Bake Sale

On the 17th of February TFC had a bake sale to raise money for our service and money for if we printing pamphlets to help spread and rise awareness in our surrounding community. Our service leaders gave the members of the service a goal to create an event(s) that raise money and awareness. We have completed the first part of the task and now we just have to do our raising awareness part.

Primary School Movie Night

For my service The Forgotten Children on the 24th of October we had a movie afternoon for the primary school. We watch the movie Brave and we had a mini bake sale, I brought cupcakes. This was a starter for our service and we raised 18 thousand Rs.

This was to invest more funds for out ultimate goal which is to create a shelter for children who have been in child sex tourism and this would be a safe place for them to stay and be looked after. Overall the movie night starter was a success.

IB Diploma Orientation

IB Diploma Orientation 

On the 4th of September till the 6th of September the DYP1 group went on IB Orientation to Boardlands, in Kitulgala. The trip was for the class to get to know each other and learn new skills and experience fun and adventure together.

Activities

Day 1: After being in the van for almost three hours we arrived at the beginning point for White Water Rafting, which was our first activity. After Tea and snacks we made our way down to the river and split off into groups and begun to make our way down the river, I really enjoyed rafting thankfully my raft did not flip. We stopped for lunch half way to boraderlands and after that we went for a hike to up to do canyoning. Once we got back to the river we floated the rest of the way to camp. When we got to boarderland we went and had a nice cold shower and changed. We then met in the Long House and had a debrief and afterwards dinner. I unfortunately had managed to hurt my ankle, while canyoning. We then all went to bed for rest for the eventful next day.

Day 2: Waking up in the morning at 6:30 how fun!! Today we were going to go hike up to caves in the mountain and the go Abseiling on a waterfall. My ankle was still playing up so I kinda took it easy. We took the buses part of the way then walked to rest. Once we were at the cave we were told to use our sense perception. We did an activity in the cave were we partnered up and had were given a picture that we had to describe to our blindfolded partner. The cave was interesting and I liked the activity. After stopping for a lunch of sandwiches the started to make their way up to the waterfall, I took the car with Wade the owner of Boarderlands and Mrs. Williams our Head of school because my ankle was still hurting. At the top of the of the waterfall it was really beautiful. And then it started to rain, really heavily so we were all huddled together for warmth. I did not abseil that time because of my ankle but I have been before so I didn't mind that much. When we were back at camp we had hot soup and showered and changed and settled for a rainy night.

Day 3: Waking up and going for a run (or a hobble in my case) at 6:30 YAY!!! Today we were going to interview the people of the community, my group had the Justice of the Peace. after a short car ride we made it to the Justice of the Peace's house conduct out interview. I found him interesting and the family was very welcoming. Back at the camp we had lunch and finished packing up out belongings and paying are bar bill, we said goodbye to boardlands and hopped in the bus for a 3 hour journey back to school. The ride was uneventful, we played 20 questions and eat lots of food. we arrived at school on time and after a quick stop to McDonalds I went home to sleep in my wonderful bed.