The Annual Blood Donation Campaign is one of the major events organized by the Royal College Red Cross Society and it has become our tradition since 1979. This massive community service project is not for the school’s benefit alone, but in aid of the national blood bank and through it for the entire country. It was the 41st Annual Blood Donation Campaign organized this year.
We have proudly continued this legacy and held the 41st Annual Blood Donation Campaign on the 25th of September 2020. We are an important supplier of Blood to the National Blood Bank over the years. This year we were able to collect 270 pints the second biggest ever blood donation organized by a school and the largest blood donation in Royal history breaking the record of 238 pints in 2016. And it is also considered as the biggest blood donation organized after the Corona pandemic while the National Blood Center having a severe shortage of blood. For this achievement we will be awarded on next year World Blood Donors’ Day celebration event organized by the National Blood Transfusion Service of Sri Lanka.
Project Orange Elephant (POE) is an initiative to minimize the human-elephant conflict prevailing in Sri Lanka in an environment-friendly manner as well as to provide rural villagers in Sri Lanka an extra source of income.
POE got its name by the use of the Bibile Sweet Orange Plant which is the main resource for this project. As for prior scientific research and observations conducted by SLWLCS elephants by nature dislikes citrus plants due to their smell and thorns. Therefore, the Bibile Sweet Orange plant was selected, as it is both an endemic plant and it also emits an intense citrus smell. Besides the Bibile Sweet Orange plants takes only 2 years to mature and give the harvest. This orange harvest can bring extra income for the residents in the targeted regions.
POE was first initiated by the Wild Life Conservation Society of Sri Lanka (SLWLCS). The Royal College Red Cross Society (RCRCS) joined hands with SLWLCS in 2018 in a campaign to raise awareness on the human-elephant conflict and also raise funds for POE which resulted in a very successful campaign resulting in a donation of 2000 Bibile Orange Plants to be planted in rural areas of Wasgamuwa.
This year as this 2nd phase of POE conducted by RCRCS we have decided to incorporate the help of the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society (SLRCS) and donated 500 Bible Sweet Orange Plants to selected school/s of the areas suffering from human-elephant conflict. The plants have been planned to be purchased from the Agricultural department and will be supervised by an expert in the field of human-elephant conflict resolution Dr. Sumith Pilapitiya.
Due to the virus and the long lockdown that was experienced throughout the country, the students around Sri Lanka are in confusion as to what to do to stay safe from this deadly virus. This is a project organized by the Royal College Red Cross Society who seeks to give a platform to all frontline workers, administrators, and policymakers, who are working hard to curb the novel Covid-19, a chance to share their experiences directly to students, depending on their expertise and what we can do to prevent it to keep our country safe.
We also interviewed prominent businessmen and artists to share their thought and opinion on the current situation in the country.
First Aid was provided for events throughout the year on a letter request made addressed to the Teacher in Charge of the Red Cross Society of Royal College. The Top Board Officials, Senior Committee members and the Lower Board and the members of the RCRCS engaged in these activities throughout the year. The Following events were provided with First Aid on request.
This is one of the most prominent services provided by the Red Cross Society of Royal College. As the major first aid provider of the College, the Royal College Red Cross Society has pledged in its vision and mission to support every event of the College through the provision of First Aid. The society has provided First Aid in every major event of the College from its inception in 1978. This year the Royal College Red Cross Society has been successful in providing First Aid in collaboration with the Doctors Association of Royal College to every event of the College which requested for First Aid in its best ability.
Royal College Red Cross Society with a great purpose of imparting in providing First Aid knowledge to the Society had the idea of publishing an eBook in both English and Sinhala languages including the day-to-day basic First Aid syllabus.
We have published our First Aid guides on the Scribd website, a website for eBooks. Through this First Aid E-Book, the society hopes to provide a simple and understand First Aid knowledge to Students, Scouts, Sportsmen, Cadets, Teachers, etc.
The Royal College Red Cross Society has launched a nation wide chatbot service to answer all the questions about First aid and Coronavirus integrated with the popular chat service, Viber and Telegram. This chatbot provides first aid related information, coronavirus related information as well as helpful tips for handling physical and emotional health. There is a quiz to improve and get a guarantee about your First Aid knowledge
Care 4 U is a project done by the grade 12 members of the Red Cross Society of Royal College. This is a bot dedicated to providing first aid and health-related facts to the community via social media platforms; Viber and Telegram.
Viber is free to download app that allows users to make free calls, send texts, pictures and video messages to other Viber users. It works on both mobile and computer and can be used to connect with people around the world. As of February 2015, the messaging app claims 236 million active monthly users.
Telegram is a cross-platform cloud-based instant messaging, video calling, and VoIP service. It was initially launched for iOS on 14 August 2013 in Russia and is currently based in Dubai. As of April 2020, Telegram had 400 million monthly active users.
This project will be a great service for the people in their day-to-day health related needs. This will be the first time ever for a project of this kind to be implemented in Sri Lanka by any school. The answers to the questions will be automatically provided by the Viber Bot and anyone can use this service at any time, free of charge. It is more user friendly for the user to learn basic First Aid.
The Royal College Red Cross Society organized the Restart a Heart project in the month of January. The workshop was conducted by the College of Anesthesiologists and Intensivists of Sri Lanka as a part of their program ‘Restart a Heart’ Campaign organized to promote awareness regarding Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation.
The program was conducted for the grade 12 students of the college and the members of the RCRCS to train students in CPR and provide them with the skills and confidence to act in an emergency situation to save a life.
All the participants were taught to give CPR individually in an effective manner and they were given Certificates as well. The workshop was concluded successfully.
During the Quarantine period, everyone was finding it difficult to stay at home without being able to do anything interesting during the period. So the Royal College Red Cross Society thought of giving everyone a good chance to get their selves bored out of the beds and do something productive.
“OurHero’20” Art competition was open to all schools and through this competition, competitors were able to exhibit their extravagant skills and effort. The competition was placed under the theme ‘Let’s Respect Our Unsung Heroes of Covid 19’. The competitors sent in their artworks to the email address we provided. We uploaded them to our social media and the top 5 highest liked artworks were given prizes. Below are the prize winners
2020 has become a difficult year for the whole world because of the situation of Covid-19. This dreadful circumstance led us to the idea of the "Infusion'20" community service project. The project was organized by the junior members of the Royal College Red Cross Society.Infusion'20 project comprised a donation campaign for the orphan children in need at the Vajira Sri Children Development Centre and we also entertain children by arranging a good breakfast and some activities.The members of the society provided breakfast to the children at 7.30 a.m. And then they watched a movie. As per the request by the staff in the Development Centre Alarm clocks, IR Thermometer and A4 sheets were donated by the members of the society. In addition to that Backpacks and toys were donated to all the children in the Centre.
We collaborate with the Leo Club of Godigamuwa and The Rotaract Club of University Alumni for this project. As the current ongoing situation in the country, we couldn’t hold Eye Donation Campaigns as we did in the last 2 years. So, we are looking forward to doing our project using the Social Media platforms; Instagram and Facebook. Throughout two weeks as a challenge. The participants have to register to donate eyes and tissues, through the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society website, then take a screenshot of the completed registration form and post it nominating 5 or more friends and tagging the official pages of Royal College Red Cross Society.
As the Royal College Red Cross Society, we find ourselves obliged to organize these projects and create opportunities to increase the donor base of the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society as we have always done in the prestigious history of the Club.
The quiz competition was conducted online and the college participants took part in it and submitted their answers through the online platform we created. The top 3 participants were awarded certificates and the Quiz Competition concluded successfully.
The awareness program was conducted through Social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. Posts regarding disease awareness were shared once a week through the above-mentioned social media platforms.
We planned in conducting a disease awareness program throughout the year through social media where we will be explaining a common disease every week starting from April. From this awareness program many students, parents, elder’s etcetera will be able to learn and get to know about at least 30 common diseases.
The First Aid Workshop is a Project done by the Royal College Red Cross Society annually with the intention of broadening the knowledge regarding First Aid of the Red Cross members. We as the Royal College Red Cross Society have pledged to provide First aid in all the major events of the school and therefore it is of utmost importance that our members have a theoretical and practical knowledge regarding First Aid. This project has been organized in the first half of the year prior to all the major events of the school to provide our members knowledge and practical experience regarding First Aid, thus intending to prepare them for attending and providing First Aid for these events.
The Red Cross Society of Royal College successfully organized our annual First Aid Workshop for the members of the RCRCS on 18th of February 2020, with nearly 80 participants. The main objective of this project was to provide the members of the Royal College Red Cross Society with quintessential knowledge they require as First Aid Providers and to provide them with the knowledge regarding Basic Medical Procedures. The workshop was conducted by Mr. Gayan Sampath, first aid instructor of SLRCS Colombo branch. All the participants were given First Aid knowledge on three different sections of First Aid, First Aid in General, First Aid related to sports injuries and First Aid related to Basic Life Support.
All the participants were taught first aid in an effective manner by using photos, videos and also a practical session for all the participants. The workshop was concluded successfully.