GIG1005 SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT
Reflective Writing
Interact with Orang Asli at Desa Temuan
Fatin Nabihah Binti Mohd
Rizalhanafi Date : 6th May 2018
(MIC170013)
Do you believe there are people
constantly waiting for you; look up to you when others look down on you? More
importantly, who have ever thought there is still a tiny bit of true happiness
left inside this modernized world. Because I, myself did not believe in both
before I met them; my so-called Lilliputian angels.
For someone who does not favour the
idea of temporary output and one-way learning, I find it as a A-1 idea to
organize our social engagement project in an indigenous village instead of
doing a ubiquitous one. But little did I know before we could attain the sweet end-product,
we must go through some bitter-sweet hindrance that none of us have ever
expected. At first, we thought that we could simply get in touch with one
village; inform them about our purpose and organize our project forthwith.
However, life is not as simple as we want it to be because we had to do this
and that to finally get a suggested village. Tons of official letter had been
sent to Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli (JAKOA) along the process.
Even though we got off to a bad
start, it did not stop us from moving forward but this does not mean our
hardship ends there. Back to the day when we did the test run for the
activities, I could proudly say that I saw the synergy between us to make sure
our project runs smoothly. From the point of view of someone who is indirectly
involve in preparing this project, I can say that my friends did an awesome
job! To tell the truth, we were on the verge of giving up but not this one
person, and thanks to this person’s positivity, we finally gained our strength
back. This could not be done without you, Dr. Puah.
As for my own job scope, I had been assigned
to design the banner which is not a tough job for someone who has designed a
lot of posters for as long as I could remember, but I take my words back. Having
an artist’s block when I have a banner that needed to be submitted in a few
days was really a pain in the neck and it had driven me crazy. Yet, I still
managed to design it, not the best but still acceptable. This is the moment
where I finally realised that it is okay to not be perfect.
29th April 2018 is marked
on the calendar as the day of our Social Engagement Project in Desa Temuan. I
was looking forward for this day to come and it finally did. When most of us
were busy with other activities such as Zumba and ‘gotong-royong’, a few of us
including me, prepared the sandwiches that will be given to the kids and those
who came. I never thought that I would learn something new. Do you know that we
can boil the eggs by putting them in a few plastic bags and make few holes? It
is a good tip to make your life easier. However, my job did not stop there so
does the hardship. We thought that everything would run without any problems,
but there was one thing that we should have predicted earlier—the activities
finished before the scheduled time. It was a chaos at first but we managed to
calm the kids down by conducting a dance session with them and playing one
round of infamous childhood game, music chair. In a situation like this, we
learned to think and make up our mind fast.
Never in my life, the thought of
people calling me ‘cikgu’ had ever crossed my mind but these tiny angels gave
me a memory to remember. For someone who has nothing to give and be impressed
of, their small gestures of wanting to be looked after by me and slowly opened
up to me, give me hope to help kids like them. I did not expect the word as
simple as ‘cikgu’ can be this meaningful and touch the core of my fragile heart,
but it surely can. Moreover, during Career Q&A session, this one kid asked
me how can he be like me, enrolled in the university and such while the other
kids told me their dream jobs. This was when I realised, even though they are
in that kind of community, they love to learn new things and still have a
bright future ahead regardless what they want to be, and adults like us are the
ones that capable to lead them the way. Towards the end of the event, there was
one kid that kept repeating the same question, asking us to come again next
time. It was indeed a pleasant and warm welcome.
During post-event, I was assigned
together with Syazwani, to edit a video regarding all the things that my bureau
had done for this project. As I went through all the pictures and videos, a
smile carved on my face involuntarily. This is because their smiles have 101
meanings but for sure, one of them screams ‘hope’. To summarize these, I wish
people would see there is a lot of way to send help. You do not specifically
have to lessen someone’s burden, but by just being there for him or her can
make someone’s day. As for us, it surely had some glitches here and there, but
we managed to handle it professionally.
(907 WORDS)
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