Learning to Survive When You Are Alone - Cluster 5 Project 'Home Alone'
A story line of a kid who was accidentally left alone in his house and who engaged with a number of adventurous yet interesting activities based the movie ‘home alone’ which continued for several parts. Even that movie is a fantasy; being alone at home is no joke. Emergency situations that you face may cost your life even.
Addressing this issue, we at Rotaract club of University of Moratuwa along with Rotaract clubs of KDU, Wallawatta, Kurunegala, Badulla, Edulink and Manipay put our brains and efforts together to share a few basic tips in the fields on first aid, simple construction, electrical safety and automobile. This effort became a reality through the cluster project “Home Alone” which concluded with a resounding success on 28th January 2017 at the Royal Skills Centre, Colombo 07.
Realizing the ‘importance of sharing’, Rotaract culture always encourages the clubs to work as clusters which will enable clubs to learn from each other about different operational strategies that each of them use and to promote healthy connections among the club members and let them understand different cultures and the diversity in Rotaract. Aligning with this vision, we at Rotaract club of University of Moratuwa rendered our support to the Cluster 5 project ‘home alone’ by taking the responsibility of the sessions on electrical safety and basic construction.
Rtr. Sahan Weerasinghe being an undergraduate in the Department of Civil Engineering focused on sharing the ways to supervise Contractors which I believe will come in handy when we construct a house because if we don’t have a knowledge about the materials and methods of constructing, contractor will have a competitive edge over us. He further explained about the cracks that propagate in walls and the ways to evaluate if they need attention or not. He made himself clear to everyone by backing his facts with simple diagrams.
I, Rtr. Paveen Perera was fortunate enough to share my knowledge about electrical safety at this event. I strictly limited my focus area into domestic electrical safety elements. I was able to explain about the functional aspects of MCB, main switch, fuse and trip switch and the correct ways to operate them. I categorized all electrical failures into a universal categorization and explained how each element gives protection to those failures. After a brief mentioning about fire safety caused by electrical failure, I ended my session.
Rtr. Arosha Ransimala together with Rtr. Rushinie Ranasinghe from Rotaract Club of KDU conducted a session with an informative presentation about first aid. The point that they stressed was the primary objective of first aid is to take the patient’s life out from risk until the patient is brought into proper medical treatment and prevent further injury while speeding up the recovery process.
Session conducted on automobile by Arosha Abeywarne, Roncalli Rambukwella from Demo Motors was an interesting session which featured practical explanations about dealing with a flat tire or a dead battery of a vehicle. They introduced some good practices for a vehicle user and they were freely available for any question from the participants regarding automobile. That interactive session clarified many doubts of the audience. It was truly inspiring to witness the level of enthusiasm displayed by the members of all clubs towards this cluster project given that it was a Saturday morning.
