Reflection

In total, we just can conclude that we have done a marvelous Social Engagement trips to Sekinchan and Rumah Hope Sentul. Reflecting back the moments, we have learnt a great lesson and do feel that we have contributed something good in return to the society.

Here we would like to share our reflections on the trips we made chronologically. We would like to start up with the trip to Sekinchan. As we spent our time at a school in Sekinchan on the first day, we realized on the vitality of bringing back to the society of the knowledge we gained through our endeavor to University of Malaya (UM). Too good to be true, secondary school students must have best of their knowledge on the pathway to higher educational institutions, as it can be the parameter set to achieve the goals of their life. This may seem something that of small in effort, but later to see the seeds sown in the heart of the youngsters have grown into a tree will be truly a great achievement of ours. We believe that we obtained a valuable lesson that can make this society a well-educated one in the eyes of the world.

Moving on to the second day event! Cleaning a church compound with fellow members of the church was indeed a great blessing for us. As we joined hand in hand to finish the task of cleaning the church compound, we realized that differences in our beliefs and religions are so not needed in order to be engaged with the society. People tend to neglect the need of the others since they make their hearts prone to radically rely on their own selves. This should be proved wrong as we live in a multiracial and multicultural country, where unity is our strength. We, as UM students, did realize that to make the social to be engaged in its welfare needs open-mindedness among the citizens.

Love nature, save the Earth. A society does not mean the lives of human beings only. Nature that has been created by the Almighty God does counted in as a part of the society. Lately, environmental issues are on the rise in the news. How much concerned are we? Thus, when we took the initiative of the cleaning the beach at Sekinchan, the people around were pushed to move and make the beach clean. It was not an individual effort indeed. It was a progress showered by an engaged society. As the crowd turned bigger to join hands, we actually managed to clean the beach in a short while than expected time range. This event did really teach us that environmental cleanliness can be really maintained if the society come together and take the responsibility.

HOPE Worldwide Malaysia visitation, on the other hand, did make a great impact on us on the part of the society to play for the kids growing up in poverty. These kids need love and affection as they ill-fated. They need assistance in areas such as education and mental health. Thus, as we realized that need, we took part in My Reading Program for the children. Publicizing this matter, did create a public awareness. We gained support from the external sources and so we were able to buy stationeries for the kids. This made us to know how the society is still care about the children who are stricken by hopeless situation, giving them hope and life.

 In conclusion, as we reflect back, we gained ample of lessons throughout the Social Engagement activities. We were able to create awareness to the students and their parents on the importance to know the educational pathway for a better future. We are also satisfied with our efforts to bring good to the society in making known the vitality of education in life. We also understood that involving into a social responsibility event, should there be no differences in beliefs or culture pointed out to make an improved society. As students of UM, we believe that the hopes are upon us to make the society come together to clean the environment, thus creating a better place for the future generation. We also do feel that the unfortunate do need attention from the society as they should not be left behind from the nation’s progress. We trust that the future will be better if the reflections we poured here is fully propelled in the society.

MY Reading Program by HOPE Worldwide, Malaysia on 9 May 2015

Today, we departed from UM at 9.00am by LRT and had our first stop at NU Central to buy some small gifts for the children. We chose to buy stationery for the small kids as a motivation for them to pay more hard work in their studies. 30 sets of gifts were successfully prepared by us in a short while. Teamwork is indeed important in order to make job a success. 

Preparation of small gifts in process

Small gifts prepared – a file, a ruler, a sharpener and a pencil in a set

After the preparation of gifts and lunch session, we headed to Sentul Timur by taking LRT. We had to reach our destination by 1.30pm, as scheduled. In fact, we managed to arrive at HOPE worldwide centre around 1.00 pm with the help of a volunteer we met coincidentally at LRT Station. We appreciated and were blissful with the mercy she offered in leading us to the centre; otherwise, it would be a great challenge for us in search of it.

Agenda of the day was started with a short briefing by the supervisor, Caesar. From introduction of HOPE worldwide organization to briefing and preparation of activities, it had actually embarked our passion in serving or helping the community. The community there around Sentul Timur is mainly built up by the underprivileged group and majority of them are Indians.   In order to meet the basic needs, the basic 3 meals which most of us might take for granted, some of them are forced to commit crime just to fight for a living for their beloved family. They have no choice but to compromise to the reality. Engagement in this kind of program gave us an eye-opening experience in seeing the real situation of the poor, and of course, it made us to feel blessed for everything we have now.

As we can see from the picture, the living environment there isn’t well.

The reading program started at 2.30pm.

We started off with an ice-breaking session. We were one of the two volunteer teams of the reading program that day. Each of us introduced ourselves warmly to the little kids.  There were 30 kids in total whom aged from 5 to 9. For your information, these children are not orphans, but they are from the underprivileged families and are ready to improve themselves in term of speaking ability. We bonded and played games with the kids. The video below shows our interaction session and all of us did have fun throughout the session:

A closer bonding was created between us and the children. We continued with a story-telling session. The story we picked was titled ‘The Little Yellow Chicken’. Each of us had our role in this story-telling session to attract their attention and interest. We were figured out in the official Facebook page of HOPE Worldwide Malaysia:

Source : Official Facebook of HOPE Worldwide Malaysia

It was then followed by the main agenda of the day, which was the reading session. Each of us was assigned to accompany one or two students in reading. The major concern of this session was not to force them to read, but to instill their interest in learning English. One-to-one or small group learning was effective to stay focus on particular students. Each of them have different English level and what should we did was to teach and guide them accordingly. At the end of the reading session, we were asked to grade them from few aspects which were pronunciation, voice projection, confidence level, fluency and vocabulary. This was done to keep track of every kid about their improvement in English learning process. Throughout the reading session, we interacted with them as we are now friends with each other.

 

Before it came to an end, we distributed our gifts to every kid. Seeing the joy and happiness on their faces made us feel contented. At the same time, we felt even more grateful for what we had all this while. This moment of bliss was priceless; we enjoyed playing and learning with them. Not only for the kids. It was also a fruitful day for all of us as we learnt to be blessed and cherish every single thing in life. This was definitely a memorable experience for us and hopefully we will pay another visit to them again in future not because of the assignment need but our sincerity.

Seeing the smiles on their faces made us realized volunteers are not free. We are paid in five figures, S-M-I-L-E.

About HOPE Worldwide, Malaysia

HOPE worldwide is an international non-profit, non-religious organization established in over 100 countries, reaching out to more than two million people annually. Since 1996, HOPE worldwide Malaysia is committed to bringing hope to the underprivileged and disadvantaged communities by offering them free healthcare, empowering them with new technology and creative skills, and building their confidence to face the world with pride in their existence and capabilities.  

Click this link for further information: http://www.hopeww.org.my/

There are different community programs offered by HOPE worldwide Malaysia, which has successfully brought great impact to the unprivileged. The 3 core areas include Health & Medical, Food & Nutrition as well as Education.

Health & Medical

Sentul Free Clinic of HOPE

Penang Free Pediatric Clinic

Penang Free Mobile Clinic

Food & Nutrition

Food Distribution Program

Education

MY Reading Program

Creative Art Program

1 Stop IT Resource Centre

School Sponsorship Program

Why did we choose MY Reading Program?

We chose to involve in MY Reading Program as a part of our Social Engagement agenda. This is because everyone deserves an equal educational opportunity, especially for the poor. Promotion of education is vital to improve the standard of living for the underprivileged ones. English which is the global language should be mastered by the young before stepping into challenging society.

MY Reading Program started in year 2008, its objective is to help underprivileged children to learn and appreciate English in a fun and lively environment through several of activities, include singing of nursery rhymes, games and as well one to one story reading.

We find this is a great chance for us to engage with different types of people in the society.