Everyone in this world has a duty to contribute to society in one way or another. For students and teenagers of our age, one of the easiest and effective ways to do that is community service. Community service is voluntary work intended to help people in a particular area. Not only does it provide service to those who need it, it also helps students acquire life skills and knowledge. There are a wide range of community service activities that people can take part in such as helping the elderly or disabled, donating food and clothes, participating in charity races and so the list goes on.
“Learners of Year 11 have pledged 400 hours of community service this academic year”
The learners of Year 11, supervised by Vice Principal Mr Ahmed Khan, have started community service sessions where every Thursday from 8:00 am to 10:00 am we shall leave campus to contribute to society so we can bring a positive change to the people we meet as well as ourselves. It started off with a discussion where each of us spoke about we think community service is, although we all answered in different ways the meaning was the same and that was “helping those in need around us”. The first service we chose to do was reading and teaching kids to improve their English and our destination was NJV or Narayan Jagannath Vaidya High School which is the first government school established in Sindh.
Every Thursday morning we started going to NJV’s library to read to Grade 4 students and help them understand words that they had problems with. Many of them were shy at first and would only want to sit and listen to us reading to them but gradually, they opened up to us and started waiting for Thursdays so they could meet us. They started volunteering to read and weren’t afraid of making pronunciation errors because they knew that we were there to help correct them. Due to these community service sessions, their reading skills have improved and they can identify quite a few difficult words. We have spent five sessions with them and sadly next week will be our last session with them before then we move on to another community service and I must say that all of us will miss the wonderful and very mannerly students of NJV.
It is recommended for everyone to contribute to your society, not only for the benefits but also for the warm smiles of the people who will be helped through your actions. It is a wonderful and unforgettable experience that will be useful for you in the future so don’t hesitate if you have the opportunity to do community service.
Year 11