A Newbie Volunteer’s Road to Executing the Largest Virtual Career Fair | Life at Rotaract Mora
The challenging journey to become the finest version
Cherishing life of a newbie
My Rotaract journey began back in September 2018. I visited the Annual Book Fair Exhibition held at BMICH premises along with my batchmates not to purchase books, but to sell sticker cards made using the drawings of the children at Maharagama Apeksha Hospital to raise funds for the innocent souls in the hospital. It was a sub-phase of the main project called “Hand in Hand”. While I was contributing to this amazing project at BMICH, I saw the positive attitudes and enthusiasm of the community towards such fundraising programs to help beautiful little souls fighting for their lives. I had a dream to help people on a large scale since my childhood. I was interested in volunteering for impactful service projects for the community since my school days. I realized that this is the best platform for me to contribute projects which create an enormous impact on the goodness of society. I was lucky enough to witness it through my own eyes with the project Sparkle, Colours, etc.
While working in this amazing club, I learned more about the culture of Rotaract and the impact it has done on society. Also, about the Rotaract Club of the University of Moratuwa and its immense service to the Sri Lankan community. With the understanding of the variety of projects executed by the club, I realized that Rotaract is an all-in-one package that delivers everything a person needs to develop themselves while serving the community. Working inside this prestigious organization as an active member, I got the opportunity to be the Chairperson of the ‘MoraMedics 2019’ project. I learned many teamwork skills, leadership and organizing strategies through this project.
As a newbie of the club, life was full of joy and entertainment due to the lack of responsibilities we had on our hands. The board of officials representing the senior batches were always there to take care of us. It is the best time of your journey to meet new people and interact with each other and enjoy to the fullest and serve the community through volunteering on impressive projects executed by the club.
Taking a step forward
With the active participation in the club work, I got the opportunity to work as the Assistant Treasurer for the year 2019/20 of the Rotaract Mora Family. It was truly a glorious opportunity for me to work as an Official Member of the Club. It was also a challenging position for me and helped to improve my integrity, responsibility, and carefulness by handling finance statements of all the projects of the club with the Treasurer who was an experienced senior member than me on that aspect. During that time, I was appointed as the assistant sponsorship coordinator of ‘Are You Ready? 2019’, the official career fair of the university organized by the club. It was a game-changing and challenging role in my life by directly exposing me to handle corporate personalities with good attention and responsibility. While managing the finances of the club and helping to execute several projects of my batchmates, the Rotaract year 2019/20 came to an end.
Lifting the journey to greater heights
Then I got the opportunity to work as the Co-director of Club Service Avenue of Rotaract Mora along with two directors. With the rise of the covid-19 pandemic, the university was closed throughout the entire year. The government introduced restrictions to avoid physical gatherings. With the absence of physical presence and interaction, we struggled to provide the enjoyment and excitement which physical club service projects offered to members throughout previous years. Club Service Avenue has always been the key pillar of developing fellowship among club members and keeping their bonds together. With the help of experience gained through previous years working in the club, we introduced some brand new implementations breaching the limitations of traditional projects done by the avenue. New platforms were developed for some of the projects to provide the best experience for club members who took part in the projects and to enlighten their lonely lives at home.
Making the Impossible Possible
Meanwhile working in the club as a director overcoming many challenges, I was appointed as the project Chairperson of ‘Are You Ready? 2020’ along with Thenuka Karunasiri. It was the peak of challenges that we had to overcome during a single project. This major project opens the door to improve various skills to strategize any kind of project or plan in life. First, we planned a general physical career fair with the assistance of the committee. Unfortunately, with the sudden increase in the corona pandemic, we ran out of the possibility of conducting a physical career fair. Companies are more likely to recruit people during the last quarter of a year. Organizing the career fair by December was the best option we had to provide the maximum number of job opportunities for our beloved seniors at the university. Therefore, the entire physical career was converted into a virtual career fair while improving the quality and impact of the project than previous years.
Four preparatory sessions were conducted for the undergraduates to learn new skills and gain knowledge to bridge the gap between the corporate world and university life. All the sessions were executed with the assistance of corporate experts in the field. In addition to that, a one-to-one CV clinic program was organized via MS Teams to improve the CVs of final year undergraduates through a personal evaluation performed by a corporate representing a relevant field of the undergraduate’s study area to provide feedback to create a CV to outstand from the rest of the applicants in a job interview. In a circumstance where pandemic impacted the entire economy of the country negatively and hundreds of people got unemployed due to the economic crisis, we were managed to bring 70 corporate giants in the country to accommodate 2000+ interviews for 900+ final year undergraduates of the university across 3 consecutive days through a customized platform developed using the ideas of the all the fellow executive committee members in the board.
With the support of 20 executive committee members and 193 general members of the club who dedicated their valuable time over one and half months, we managed to successfully execute one of the largest virtual career fairs in Sri Lankan history. It was a memorable moment in my life. I learned many lifelong lessons from this spectacular project.
Signing off from a remarkable journey
All the good things come to an end. With the origin of selling sticker cards at BMICH to successfully executing one of the largest virtual career fairs in the country, Rotaract life added extraordinary moments and accomplishments to my life and a tremendous cure for the stressful academic life at the university. Work-life balance is an essential factor for everyone human being to succeed in their life journey. In the end, I am really happy and satisfied with the stuff I have achieved and the memories which I collected in the 3 years of journey at Rotaract Mora. It is a place where you will meet lots of new people and the best place to start building your network as an undergraduate. Rotaract is a massive moment than a person thinks from the outside of it. Rotaract Mora always has been a pioneer of being outstanding among the clubs in the country.
Rotaract is the best place to discover the hidden talent within you, strengthen your Network and most importantly to become the Best version of yourself