Page 35 - VIS - Newsletter

October/2023

COMMUNITY SERVICE

(A BORING TITLE FOR AN INTERESTING TRIP!)

The next day, it was very interesting - for me, at
least - how the atmosphere and surroundings
changed almost as soon as I stepped out of the
school. It was a sudden feeling - something
between surprise and confusion, and the feeling

stayed with me throughout the journey. No
longer was the grass completely green and
always trimmed. No longer did everything seem
brand new. Unlike the school, which I had grown
accustomed to, there wasn’t an army of people

cleaning up the forest. Nor did anybody care
enough.
Recently, our Principal initiated the Community
Service effort by grades 8 and 9 in the forested
vicinity of the school. The semester was drawing
to a close and it was a good time for our students
to have a taste of what it means to take initiative
on behalf of the larger public good.

However, if the disappointingly large amount of
It is an urgent part of education in our times for
wrappers, plastic cups, and the occasional skull of
young people to understand what it means to step
a long dead animal, are not considered, I would
out of our bubbles of privilege and to make an
say the overall experience was a positive one. It
effort to do the right kind of work - work that the
was fun finding random wrappers and glass
earth needs us to do. This was a small step in that
pieces, and trying to connect the pieces as though
direction by our 8th and 9th graders.
we were detectives trying to imagine who and
what could make such a mess. The walks from
Accompanied by teachers and the necessary
and to the school were very scenic, and would
equipment - sacks, gloves, brooms and shovels -
have been utterly relaxing, had it not been for
the students walked along the forest road,
the 80 or so loud and excited kids buzzing along.
picking up plastic and other waste material. What
follows is an anecdotal narrative of what took
I think, by the end of it all, when we had all gotten
place - from the child’s point of view.
back to school and were happily sipping at our
mango juice packs, the prevailing thought in
The first community service trip of VIS in its
everyone’s mind was quite different from the one
second academic year 2023-24 took place on
on the previous night: “I am glad I did this.” That
October 13th. The previous day, after dinner, an
is, of course, if they weren’t still mad at being
orientation for the trip was held and the thought
woken up at 5:00 a.m.!
uppermost in the students’ minds was: “But what
exactly is the purpose of this?”
Madhumitha (8A)