First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Centre for the Initiation of Talent and Industrial Training ( CITra ) and our supervisor, Dr. Ong Lin Dar for giving me this golden opportunity to do good deeds to the society. At the same time, I have gained abundance of knowledge, moral values and meaningful experience throughout carrying out this project at IQ70+ ( Malaysian Association for the Welfare of Mentally Challenged Children) which is situated at just 5 minutes from the University of Malaya.
I am so glad to be in the programme department of social engagement as the head of department. The reason I chose to be in programme department is I like to organize fun and beneficial activities with my department members for the lovely kids. During the planning phase, I am happy that our department work well together to come out with ideas and planning for the activities. We read through the official website of IQ70+ to get the insights about the condition of the children and the daily activities they do at the centre. I realized that the children just do colouring and playing with their peers. Hence, I think it would be meaningful if we planned to do a alphabet and numbers teaching session so the children can read and count in the future.
Besides, we did searched for the best suitable games that must involved all the disabled kids and us, so we can truly interact with them. I realized that the kids spend most of their time sitting and colouring, so we planned to do dancing session to help them to burn calories and instill the importance of healthy lifestyle. We spent quite a lot of times to find the entertaining dancing videos on YouTube and practice the dances before the event day. Apart from that, I was willing to help our logistic member whenever she has queries regarding the amount of cooking material needed for each food. The process of discussion and preparation had really cemented the bond between our group members.
19 April 2019, we finally reached the actual day of social engagement! I was so excited to see all the lovely children at IQ70+, and felt eager to see our performance on these 3 days. Anyway, the reaction and expression from the children can obviously reflect our performance level. On the first day, I felt so warmth when the children run towards me and called me “jie jie, zao an” (Good morning, sis). The most unforgettable moment on the first day was the game session, that is where it all started. I felt a glimpse of success when the children were so happy engaging in musical chairs, musical bottles and Tom and Jerry balloons passing. They were so delighted to blow all two packs of colourful balloons we bought. They were so determined to be the winner of the games just like normal children do. All of us was in surprised when the children showcase their talent of dancing and singing after the game. I was thinking to add more dancing videos to the next day session after I saw this.
During the DIY coloured salt bottle gift making, the kid next to me was patiently stir the salts using the pink chalk and even asked for more colour of chalks from me. I am so happy and so is he when the vibrant salts are fully filled up the small glass bottle. At that time, a kid ran to me and ask our names, surprisingly he still remember my name when he waved and said “jie jie, bye-bye” on the last day.
On the 2nd day, my excitement to having fun with the children was doubled compare to yesterday. I was amazed by the kids energetic spirit during the dances. I literally astonished by 2 kids who did the hand stand and cartwheeling action in the middle of the dance. Moreover, due to the children do not know to sing English song while we have group members do not know to sing Mandarin song, I then discuss with teammates and got agreement from our group leader to make a small change on our activity, that each department happily performed a song to the children. The children were entertained by our singing even though they looked kind of tired after dancing.
Despite the heavy afternoon rain limits our activity at outside, it could not dampen our spirit to go inside the children’ home to meet the disabled kids who are unable to join us learning and playing due to lack of physical ability. Here comes a cute Indian kid signaled my friends and I to sit down and see him drawing his favourite cartoon character. My heart felt so heavy to leave him when he continuously shows us the ‘don’t leave me alone’ body language asking us to sit down and accompany him. I felt his loneliness of not having friend to play with so I promised him that we will be back to join him on tomorrow morning, and guess what? We did.
On the last day, seeing the children joyfully immerse in the atmosphere of enthusiasm and happiness when playing the old school games, which are London bridge is falling down and 1, 2, 3 robot, it made me recall all those childhood memories. Playing these games with them was like ‘revisiting’ our childhood with our university friends and these lovely angels.
Making appreciation card session is the most unforgettable and meaningful activity to my learning experience. 2 weeks before the day, I went to Mr.DIY shopping for the material that we need in making card. I was hesitating of what design of stickers to choose, after flipping all the stickers hanging on the rack from front to back, after analyzing and imagining what combination of stickers would make a perfect card, i finally bought two sticker books with inspiring words and 2 sticker sheets with glittery graphics. I want to thank my group member for bringing her colour marker pens shared with everyone to illustrate their favourite quotes or appreciation text. The children were enjoying writing appreciation words to their principal and keep tearing out their favourite sticker until the cards in their hand fully filled with stickers. Our group members passionately help the children who cannot write properly to decorate and write their thoughts on the card. The principal was awestruck for a few seconds when he saw the kids fantastic artwork. Each group 10 member made an appreciation card to IQ70+ person in charge as well and they really loved it. The moment when everyone holding a card in their hand and the camera shutter made the loud ‘’click..’’sound, you know we have done a memorable activity.
The 3 fruitful days had passed, everything is a wrap! Now is the time for all of us to complete all the group and individual report. Despite busy with tonnes of assignments, I am also focusing in finishing social engagement reports and evaluation forms. I believe that all of us was recounting the days with the kids while doing the report, reflective journal and presentation slides. Since IQ70+ is just a stone throw away from our university, we will definitely go back to visit them again during our free time especially festival season.
All for one and one for all. Social engagement activities had greatly impact me to be thankful and cherish what I have in life. I have see , hear , feel from the disabled children about the value of life. I will implement the value of filial piety to family members, caring and sharing with the unfortunate kids, showing love and affection to them. The children existence serve as a reminder that we need to be more persevere and positive when facing hardship in life. From this project, I gained knowledge about the characteristics and needs of disabled kids as well as developed my soft skills. I really admire all the person in charge at iq70+ taking care of the kids patiently all the time. They inspired me to encourage more friends and family to join social welfare engagement activities in the future.
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