Unleashed the Diamond

KIL 170037_Lim Yu Zheng

Preparation

Before we decided that Rumah Hope to be the place where we will carry out our voluntary community service, we faced many challenges in finding organizations that is suitable with our objectives by considering the factors of transportation, target group and planned activities. It was my first voluntary experience and I am excited and prepared as I always enjoy reaching out with strangers.

Before visiting Rumah Hope, my teammates and I had a discussion on the tentative, budget and distributed the jobscopes among us and proposed our plans to Dr. Mahar. Dr Mahar was supportive and gave us many advice for example regarding safety and ways to communicate with the children. As considering our target group was children from different family background, age ranged between 7-12, we have included variety of activities to build their confidence level, fun and educational at the same time.

First Visit (3/4/2019)

During our first official visit, I was excited but nervous at the same time because I am worried I will face communication barrier with them as most of them were Indians and indigenous refugees. However, after some time spending together and try to understand their languages during the ice-breaking session, I was able to make simple communications with them. At the beginning, the children were shy and introvert. But after some group activities had been carry out, we could mingled and played together. We helped them with their homework and I realized they were left far behind from their studies as they are not able to cope and lack of tutoring.For example, I taught a standard three girl how to spell, read and write alphabets and numbers from 1 to 10. During the leisure time, we played snake & ladder and some board games. We had a fun and enjoyable time spent together with the children.

Teaching the children even though electricity went out temporarily.

Helping and teaching Francis with his Mathematics homework.

Second Visit (10/4/2019)

We helped the children with their homework. Some children were keen to learn new knowledge however there were still many children were reluctant to join the study group and played around. I taught a cute shy girl called Sandra. When I approached her, she actively took out her Mathematics homework and we had a good tutoring session although she showed her lost in concentration and interest in the middle part of the session but I managed to help her complete her homework. As compared to the first visit, I was glad to realize the children were improving in their studies. For example, Sandra was able to write and pronounce 11-20 as she remembered what I taught during the first visit. Thus, they need to be nurtured and given proper education with extra patience.

One of the fondest memories at Rumah Hope was during the leisure time in the evening where we played badminton together. Although this activity was physically exhausted, but I enjoyed very much, so as the children. Some of the children who did not join the game, they sat around the table and colour the colouring paper prepared by us. What I learned from them was to be fearless and courageous to do anything we wish to do as we often scared to step out from our comfort zone and give up on a good fight because we told ourselves there is no guarantee of success. The children are indeed playful, mischievous however they are brave to speak out for what they want.

While some of the children were playing badminton, the rest of the children enjoyed colouring.

                     Priceless smile from Sandra.

       My teammate, Syafi was teaching the children.

Third Visit (24/4/2019)

During the third visit, we planned to have a clean out session at Rumah Hope because we think children need a more conducive and tidier place to study. After we tutored the children with their homework, we started up with arranging books at the mini library. The library was actually rich of book resources ranging from storybooks, novels, academic reference books and also dictionaries however it was sad to observed that most of the children neglect this section. On the other hand, some of my teammates cleaned the surrounding of Rumah Hope. Thanks to Firdaus and Amirul who helped to sweep and collect the rubbish to make the environment cleaner. It was a tiring day however we were happy to see the results.

While arranging books, we also took some of our time reading them.

            Arranging the books at the mini library.

Amirul was setting up the new bed frame for the children.

Firdaus and I were carrying packets of rice to the store room.

Final Visit (1/5/2019)

Today was Labour day which every children were at home. Hence we had prepared some activities. We had drawing session and some interaction activities with the children. Children were asked to draw some particular objects for example cars, flower, house and let other children to guess. They were creative and focus when they were drawing what they like. They shared the colour pencils and helped each other.

              Last drawing session with the children.

The boys were showing their artworks happily.

           Sandra was showing her artworks happily.

            Finally a group photo with the children.

                               We passed our souvenirs prepared for the children to the person in charge.

Reflection

When we guiding the children with their homework, I felt sad because they were not appreciating the importance of education as education is the only key that makes their lives different from others. From my observation, most of their homework were left empty or incomplete, and they barely understand the verbs that are equivalent with their level. For example, a eight-year-old little girl named Sandra, she only understand to pronounce and spell alphabetically and numerically. Hence it was really hard for them to complete their homework. I felt empathy because some of the children actually keen and eager to learn new knowledge but due to the influences of other playful children and limitation of tutoring time at Rumah Hope, everything regarding academic mentoring was a huge challenge.

From this experience to Rumah Hope, I am grateful and felt blessed to have a family that always be my pillar of strength and provide all I need even I did not request for. I learned to be more caring and patience and show more love to our family members as we often care more about our friends and tend to ignore our family. Hence I started with a baby step to call my parents at least 2 times a week and say thank you to them for their unconditional love. Thanks to them I can continue to strive for my studies without any worries. We should appreciate the sacrifices they have made for us.

Thanks to my lovely teammates as they were really committed, responsive and I am lucky we always agreed to a decision easily thus everything turned out smooth and fine in the end.

I hope there is more voluntary activities for us to join as as academic develop our knowledge, such community service build us into holistic person with compassionate and caring.