COMMUNITY SERVICE

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Good Samaritan Home (04/2017 - 05/2017)

Having done another community service initiative project before does not really mean that joining yet another will provide the same experience. However, that did mean that I got to enjoy works like these just as how I enjoyed my last one three years prior; had you been there during our first briefing session you could easily tell that I was really eager to get started.

There were a few differences I had to take note as my take-away from the first briefing: firstly, as Computing students our aim is not to do anything like clean houses or any of the regular activities one would normally come up with when visiting an orphanage or old folks home. Apparently, it is our job to actually find a way to use what we have learnt throughout our time studying as a Computing student and apply that in helping society, the bare minimum being basic IT education I guess.

My class soon grouped ourselves into groups of 6-7 people. I ended up having six classmates whom I know pretty well, but probably not or barely worked on any assignments together previously prior: Chiew King Chan, Jie Li, Marcus Loke, Syamimi Suhaidi, Nisa Angelina, and Mwale Ntambo. After a few phone calls, King managed to secure a location we can go to carry out our community service works. Basically, yeah.. that's how we got to go to Good Samaritan Home, located all the way in Klang. (Wow, second time and I'm still going over to Klang.)

The team and I had a few meetings together to brainstorm on what we can do to complete our 10-hour requirement, and it had to be done in multiple sessions and not just doing it all in one shot. As the only one who had actually done a community service project initiative before in the team, I was tasked as team lead to help share any ideas I may have given my previous experience. It eventually turns out I did not need to do much more than anyone else; everyone was giving their all to our activities which were split into 5 two-hour sessions, the first two of which were done on the same day itself.

Come the days when we went over to the home, we had a few accounts of experience, fun and.. uh, not so good #SHTUFF of our own. Our ice-breaking activity (Activity 1) did not turn out so well as we had expected. Our initial idea was to get the children to visualize and draw out what they think a computer of the future would look like. It turns out that they did not have a slight clue as to how modern technology has advanced so far apart from games and the occasional big names of famous products; some literally had nothing come to mind and started drawing something else or fold paper airplanes! The original plan would have ended with us giving a small prize to those whom we think showed the most creativity after giving them an hour or so to carry out what we got them to do. Upon finishing the activity, we had ample time left and despite having not planned this at all, we proceeded with starting to bond with the cheeky children. Honestly, most of them were just not shy at all. They loved playing and interacting with us; hyperactive, always smiling, that sort of thing.. and we really loved those prominent aspects of their character.

Our fun experiences just continued throughout Activities 2 to 4, where we got them to learn how to use Gmail and Microsoft Office Powerpoint, as well as a small talk on Internet Privacy. We got the green light for the kids to get an e-mail account from the PIC (YM Tay), and initially we told the kids that having an e-mail account would mean being able to contact friends for like homework or something important. They soon find out that they were allowed to attach pictures in the e-mails they send and from that point, they were sending funny GIFs to each other. The third activity was albeit uneventful, since all we are doing is just teaching them how to make their slides look more creative. The fourth activity, however, ended with pretty hilarious results. While some of us attempted to pose as scheming baddies trying to rip off information from the kids, how some of them responded to those messages within a small chat group as an alternative to social media accounts turned out to be completely unexpected and BONKERS. Oh well, at least they knew that they are not supposed to post any vital or private information online.. I think.

We were told by the PIC to give them a small little test to see whether what we tried to teach them was fruitful or not, and we did exactly that for Activity 5.. and they did turn out to be paying attention and keeping to heart what had been done for them throughout the activities. We ended the session, truly sad that our time we had with the kids came to an end, but happy that we managed to spend time with them and got to share some basic IT knowledge with them. There was a promise we made, saying that we would return one day. I'm just hoping we keep that promise, all the more when our chances of seeing them as a group get slimmer.

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Good Samaritan Home (02/2014 - 04/2014)

This took place when I was still studying in Methodist College Kuala Lumpur (MCKL). During that time, the college had decided that it would be made compulsory for everyone starting from my intake onwards, being the January 2014 Intake, to take the MPW modules (Character Formation and Service Learning). I had only spent a semester in MCKL, but during that time I was able to complete the Service Learning module. The module requires us to commit 20 hours to community service at one of MCKL’s service learning partner organisations to be selected by each group, giving us a variety of choices of what to commit to the organisation of our choice. We were then supposed to keep a log of every activity we carried out during that time and report to the lecturer in-charge, Ms Rachel Chua, to keep track on our progress.

My team comprised of Chau Ting Feng, Cheong Hsien Hwa, Teo Lee Hong and myself, all from the 1401D cohort. We chose to go to the El-Shaddai Refugee Learning Centre (ESRLC). For those of you who do not know what it is, it is an organisation that takes in refugees of all kinds and provides basic necessities and shelter for them. As for the refugee children, they were also given education up to that of a primary school leaver standard. They currently depend on partnering churches for donations in the form of cash and food items. My team was able to contribute to the organisation by settling the book catalog in the library, but the most effort was put to work in the backyard garden, which was meant to teach the refugee children the importance of responsibility.

It seemed as though I was the most enthusiastic one in visiting the ESRLC centre every time, whereas the others did not seem to get what they intended to do in the first place. However, we were able to resolve most problems together and managed to foster teamwork throughout this period of serving in ESRLC. The people in charge there were very kind to redirect us to anything that they need help with. By the end of the session, we were able to view the fruits of our labor; the book catalog was finally settled, and the garden was transformed from nothing but dust to a very healthy vegetation garden. The satisfaction we got was just sensational. Nothing could replace such experience, and on a personal note, that was one of the best experiences I had ever gone through upon stepping into MCKL. My teammates and I will never forget the time spent on the “Sukuru Report” (a name we gave to our final reports), but more importantly, we are and will always be the ESRLC Rookie Helpers!!!

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