Muhammad Farrhan bin Mahmud (MIC170022)

GIG 1005 SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT

Reflective Writing

Visit to Orang Asli Village in Desa Temuan

Muhammad Farrhan bin Mahmud (MIC170022)                                                     Date: 5th May 2018

If emotions could be mapped into a spectrum of colours, with one end, as black as a stack of black cats, resembling complete negativity, and another end, as white as a moonlit sail, resembling pure positivity, then I would say my feelings towards Social Engagement that I went through would be an intermediate of these extremities, lying more towards the positive side. Throughout the processes of brainstorming, planning, and executing this course, I experienced a wide range of feelings, but the question is: did I learn anything throughout this?

During the beginning, if there was once word I would use to verbally describe Social Engagement as accurately as I can, it would be: confusion. Everything was confusing at first. To make things worse, I was appointed as the Director, with near-to-zero experience of handling such things. I thought that my being a Director was a forced act– I wore the cape of a leader because others did not want to be. Up to this day, I am not sure if I really was worth a leader, but I want to believe that at least I gained some leadership traits.

They always said that the beginning is hardest part and I concur. It was quite hard to start the engine of progress, but things started to take shape as we discuss about our objective: to transfer and exchange knowledge. I was fascinated by this idea because I understand how powerful knowledge can be. At some point that time, an honest thought crossed my mind. I realized how other charity parties would usually give physical means for the people with needs. This is not a dreadful thing per se, but I was reminded of the quote “You give a poor man a fish and you feed him for a day. You teach him to fish and you give him an occupation that will feed him for a lifetime.” When we have knowledge, we could support ourselves, change our lifestyle, and lift our society to the betterment. I became more spirited as I realized that we carry a very noble mission: to make our society live better.

So, we started to develop our five bureaus, with their specific job scopes, and elected the heads for each bureau. I specifically appointed the heads of some bureaus myself, with their consents, as I trusted in their capabilities to lead their subordinates. The work started to move towards completion, albeit slowly. For this, I am thankful for the High Committee (HiCom) and Heads of Bureaus (HOD) as they are truly the ones who carried the project forward. My belief that teamwork is essential in any project becomes fortified as I see how the bureaus work hard to achieve their personal and, ultimately, our goal. Together, we found out about a lot of stuff such as the ‘protocol’ to contact the indigenous people, the things we can do to help them, and so on. Things progressed well – too well.

Eventually, I was stopped by impediments. Halfway through the preparation, the person we contacted became unresponsive to our questions, setting up a very high standard of an event as compared to what we initially planned, as well as another group of people doing the same thing as what we were doing. Of course, my natural reaction would be to freak out because I could not comprehend the demands but later, I learnt to look at things the other way as things may appear different.  Indeed, it was. With the help of Dr Puah and the HiCom, we managed to counteract the delay in our planning, reaching an agreement, and continued the preparation.

The event day arrived but we were taken aback by how little the number of children who came as compared to what we were told to expect. It was almost five times lesser than what we planned and so, my minds wandered to the thoughts of the money we spent on their needs, which could have been significantly lesser. Not to mention that there were other helps given by other groups of people that further reinforce my notion. But I strongly believe, at the end of the day, it was better that we have more rather than having less. We were able to give a good impression to the families of the children. The activities with the children went smoothly as the facilitators gave their best to accompany the children. We ate, drank, sang, danced, played, cleaned, ran, frolicked – we had fun.

But, accidents happen during the most unexpected times. My ears heard the news of children who got into a fight and got his eye bleeding, as well as schedule changes. In the blink of an eye, chaos ensued. During that time, I could not think fast enough to mitigate this but with the help of the HiCom and our supervisor, things managed to go well and solved. As the director, I did discuss with the HiCom regarding Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) lest things go awry, but I guess some just ran from our radar. I learnt to be ready at any time, and to make critical decision if anything unexpected occur. As we reach the end of our programme, we cleaned the place, perhaps even cleaner than how it was before, and as soon as we got our seats in the bus, most of us were immediately knocked out.

Now, to answer the question before: yes. It was too obvious that I gained a lot. As I venture down this path together with my course mates, I learnt a lot of stuff – too much to be listed. Resilience, flexibility, communication, transparency, and critical thinking are just the tip of the iceberg. Throughout the course, there were hardships but it all depends on what you think yourself. In the end, whatever you feel depends on what you want it to be. For me, even though it was a tough journey, I am very glad that it ended on a happy note. Points were taken, values were added, and I am sure I would be reminded of this project as far as my life goes.

(999 words)