SELF-REFLECTION

MOHD ADIB BIN ATAN 

        Disability people in Malaysia is often being neglected, abandoned and not getting attention. In becoming first world country, our mentality surely need to be change in accordance with the First Class Mentality. Through Disability Equality Training and Walkathon, It helps me to open my eyes that these people are the same like the other and they should never be left behind, either being help or being equal despite their disabilities, we should treat they all the same because they all are equal like us and they have the same capability and ability like the others. Despite all the development and success that we made, we must not forget the minorities like them and we must ensure that no one is left behind.  I learn that we Malaysians have so many things to learn, so much more to understand and to help the disabilities. We must not forget and that we are all equal as human being and must treat everyone the same despite their status and background.

NURUL AQILA BINTI ISMAIL

Based on my opinion that I gain along with activities that our group have held under these Social Engagement, I gain a lot of experience and knowledge especially with community either they are normal or disable. I was able to certainly understand on how hard and difficult that they had to go through in order to become successful. They did not make their lack either physical or mental disorder as difficulties for them to become better person. Besides, I also had experience it by myself with blind when we practice to walk with cloth cover on our eye through DET program. However, I also had chance to interact and spend time with them through Walk a Hope Program. We also had a chance to decorate a reading corner and classroom. It makes my heart’s felt happy when we do something that can bring good effect to the orders and I hope that I can join these activities again in the future.

TAN WENG LAM

Ever since I started being a part of this social engagement group, I gained a lot of experiences and were exposed to new communication skills. The DET event I participated taught me on how to help the disabled and allowed me to feel what it is like to really be disabled and learn how tough it is to them. As for the walkathon, walk-a-hope event, it was really enjoyable to be able to interact with children with different disabilities to make their day better. What surprised me was that, those children are actually mentally and physically strong, just like normal children. Last but not least, the visit to SK Sri Damai was tiring yet satisfying to me. Nevertheless, I found the activities very meaningful and I am glad I am a part of it. Yay.

Hello there.

My name is Ponnaravin Munusamy, student from the Faculty of Economics and Administration, University Of Malaya. This semester, I took the Social Engagement course which is the university subject. Through this, I got a big opportunity to explore the outside and at the same time helping those who really need it. I and my other 19 group members have done several activities. First we joined DET (Disability equality Training) talk in our residential college. Basically, it helps us to know more about OKU people and get to know the proper way on how to help them. Next is Walkathon. It is a program where we all joined as a committee member and invite Oku from the outside to have fun with them. Last but not least is, we all went to SK Sri Damai, a primary school so that we can set up a studying corner and decorate fitness room for the disabled one. It helps them to stay in a better environment. As a conclusion, I can say that this is not the end, it’s just the beginning. Throughout this whole program, it really develop my communication skill, and make me to realize how important is our responsible to give them our support and help. And for me, it shows how important is the cooperation for make the program as a success.

Thank you.

NURUL SHAMIRA BINTI NORAZAM

What do I get from the social engagement program that was under the faculty of economics and administration is that I get to know many friends where they all are the members of my group and also first year students from the same faculty. Based on the programs that we have implemented such as “Disability Equality Training”, I knew a lot of things about inability to understand through the inclusive which is the inability can affects people with disabilities. In addition, we also have conducted a simulation which is in our own experiences we can felt how  people with disabilities feel in their daily life. From the simulation, we can felt the difficulties that were experienced by the people with disabilities and from that we can understand their feelings. The second program is the "Walkathon walk a hope", from that program I get a new experience where we all can interact and play together with the students from primary school which is consisting of students that have disabilities in education. In addition, I also can involve myself in the volunteer activities at SK Sri Damai where our group had contributed to help in decorating a reading corner and also a fitness room in their school. Finally, what is important that I can try many new things in this social engagement course, especially in doing the volunteer activities in which we can help peoples that were in dire need out there.

OOI SHU CHIA 

Through this social engagement course, I learn a lot about how to help other people especially people who are disabled. The activity that I take part in this course really bring many advantages to me. There are three activities that make me remember too much which is Disability Equality Training (DET), Walkathon and decorate a school area.

The Disability Equality Training (DET) which carry out at Seri Jati and the speaker who is En. Hafiz Halim really motivates me that all people can success if they put effort in their life. On that day, I also learned the right skills on how to lead and help a blind person.

Walkathon, walk a hope is an activity carried out at UM Arena that involve many students from different schools. Many games are designed to suit all the students and we have fun together. This is my first to involve as helper in such events. I really appreciate the chances.

The last activity was carried out in a school and our job is to help the teacher to decorate the room and create a study corner. This activity really makes me remember a lot when I was in primary school. I really felt very happy to help the teacher to decorate the room.

In short, this course gives me a chance to expose to many community service that I never take part before. I really appreciate it. Thanks for all my group mates and master of group 21.

NUR SYUHADA BINTI MOHD SALLEH

Performing the social engagement program involve working with diverse population of people. Especially our group is involving with OKU people which differs in terms physically from us. During Walkathon program, especially where we engage a lot with OKU children. This program give an opportunity towards them to exposing their self towards outdoor activities and let them fell equal with other normal people. Through joining this program teach me on how we as humans are all related. It is helps me to enumerates my personal qualities in expressing myself to be sensitives to people with values that are different from mine. For example, I could develop ability to use and acquired values, skills and knowledge in ways that make a diverse competent practice.

SOON YU SHEN

Being in part of this Social Engagement course under Group 21 didn’t excite me as much during the initial briefing with our advisor Associate Professor Dr. Rohana Jani, who we refer to as “Master” as she was also our College Headmaster. Master wanted our group activities to be focused on aiding the disabled or the “orang kurang upaya ”(OKU) in Malay, a proposal that was met with lukewarm responses from the members of Group 21, myself included.

Never had I expect that my perspective towards Master’s proposal has changed immensely ever since we organised our first activity − a workshop called Disability Equality Training, which took place on 25 March (Saturday). Being the only man who wore formal on that morning, I was immediately stationed by my “boss” Ms.Alia from the Program and Activity bureau at the entrance to greet participants and VIPs, a task which I accepted without a tinge of hesitance. Before the workshop took place, I used to think that it was just another ordinary workshop with mundane lectures on how to handle and treat the OKUs, an assumption which I now find out used to be so naïve and unfounded.

Our speaker for the workshop, Mr. Mohd Hafiz Halim, an alumnus from our college, was an officer from the Department of Social Welfare under the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development of Malaysia. He was one of the main factors that made the workshop exceptionally entertaining, he was funny, witty and for the lack of better words, awesome.  Mr. Hafiz began the workshop by completely reshaping my beliefs and attitude towards disability and the disabled through skilful use of analogies and questioning.  One of my favourite questions asked by Mr. Hafiz is: “how should we fit a star through a smaller, circular hole?” The responses received were diverse, including but not limited to folding, cutting, crumpling, stuffing, lubricating, and boiling the star to soften it before fitting it through the hole. Most of the answers made Mr. Hafiz laugh, some made him grin with disgust. Turns out, the star was an analogy, referring to the disabled, and the hole was the obstacle which resulted from the surroundings or society’s attitude towards the disabled. How the star was unable to fit through the smaller hole was akin to our real world situation where the disabled were faced with difficulties fitting into society, either because of the surroundings which are not disabled-friendly or society’s severe apathy towards catering their needs. Mr. Hafiz pointed out very clearly that most of us were not seeing the actual problem, instead we focused too much on changing the star (the disabled) instead of the hole (the obstacle). He insisted that it was the hole that was supposed to be changed, through the removal of these obstacles, only will society progress to be more inclusive, regardless of ones deficiencies.

To make us understand more on the hardships faced by the disabled, the conducted a simulation in which we have to navigate around the college blindfolded, guided by only a white cane for half of the journey before we were allowed human guidance. The first half of the journey was gruelling, although armed with a white cane, I still felt unsure in putting my next step forward even though it was obvious that the cane detected no obstructions within my vicinity. Luckily, when it was time for human guidance, travelling around blindfolded was relatively easier to do as I no longer have to have swung my cane around before moving on. That was also the time for us to practice the proper way to guide the blind or visually impaired in traversing.

Finally, we had lunch and a small reflection session before the workshop ends. Frankly speaking, the workshop is arguably one of the best that I have ever joined, it’s educative and transformative, and it definitely has bettered me on the inside. I would love to elaborate more, but I’m afraid that I might reach my word limit. So I would like to take the initiative to remind my readers that we should not judge a book by its cover. I must admit that I was wrong to have doubts on the activities of my group. But if time was to rewind back to our first Social Engagement course briefing with Master, I would have been more enthusiastic about it.

Love,

Ihearthelping

RAMYAA A/P RADHAKRISHNAN

Being a member of Social Engagement Group 21, I have learned a lot of new things about disability and people with disabilities. We have conducted 3 activities for this project, which is Disability Equity Training (DET), Walkathon-walk a hope, and a visit to school. All three activities are related to people with disability. The DET have given me a different perception that disable people should be treated as a normal human being. Walkathon given me chance and experience to mingle around and play games with children with physical disabilities and learning disabilities. The visit to school has given us chance to contribute for forming a study area for autism students. By taking part in these activities my understanding on disable person has increased and my perspective on disable people has changed as well. It was a great moment to spend time and work with this team, Social Engagement Group 21 from Faculty of Economics and Administration and Professor Madya Dr Rohana binti Jani. 

Thank you.

NURUL ALIA BINTI ABDUL RAZALI

Social engagement activities that my group had been doing are Disability Equality Training (DET), Walk-A-Thon and  decorating reading corner and fitness room at Sekolah Kebangsaan Sri Damai. For DET, the speaker is En. Hafiz from Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat. It is about to make us understand more about disable people which is their concern, problems and help needed by them. What I get from DET is that I know what it feels like to be different. I did the simulation as a blind people so I can felt how insecured I am when I can’t see.  Next activity is Walk-A-Thon which is about a charity program to raise fund for improving and enhancing the facilities for disable students at Kolej Kediaman Ketujuh. This program is not just to fund raising but playing games with disable students from school that was invited. I learn how to interact with disable people when played games with them together through this program.  I knew how to have fun with them. And the last activity is decorating the reading corner and fitness room at Sekolah Kebangsaan Sri Damai. My group bought two book shelf for reading corner. For fitness room, we bought new wallpapers. What I get from this activity is my group and I were bonding when doing works together. We were helping each other and delegate the works and finished it on time. At the same time, we contribute our decorations to the school.

TAN CHING SHYUAN

I am Tan Ching Shyuan. I took the social engagement course together with 20 course mate.  We did a few activities during this semester. The first activity is Disability Equality Training. From this activity, I have learned the proper ways to help a OKU when he/she is in need. I also being given a chance to experience the feeling of become a blind man. I got to know more about the OKU and start to take care about the OKU more properly after this activity. Next, Walk-a-Hope was really a meaningful event. We get to know more each other throughout the preparation, for example, doing the headband together until late night. I can have more interaction with the OKU from different schools, and having fun together with them. Lastly, we went to the SK. Sri Damai to decorate some school corner for example, reading corner and a classroom. It was amazing, because it is my first time to join this kind of event. I can sure that students will have more interest in studying if the classroom is decorated nicely. In conclusion, Social Engagement was a meaningful and benefits society’s project. I have learned a lot from this project and thanks to Profesor Madya Dr. Rohana Binti Jani for guiding us in this project to make the project goes well.

NURSYAMIHA BINTI MAHMOOD

In social engagement, my group have doing and involved in several programs. First and foremost, we have involved in a talk called as Disability Equality Training (DET).  From this program, I get to know a lot about people with disability such as the types of disability, policies, facilities and also equipments specializes for them. Also, I involved in Walkathon Zaba. The events teached me to always help people in need especially people with disability. Besides, trip to SK Sri Damai give me opportunity to design reading corner for special children to encourage them to love reading.

SYASYA NURHIDAYAH BINTI ABDUL RAHMAN

Hi, I am Syasya Nurhidayah binti Abdul Rahman. First of all, I am so thankful for be a one of IHeart Helping group members for Social Engagement. It is because we were having 3 three events together through thick and thin. Even all the programmes are done, we still have that “ engagement” with each other. What I got from this Social Engagement is I can know and understand more about disability people. We held 3 events like Disability Equality Training (DET), Walkathon, and we went to SK Sri Damai to decorate their reading corner and classroom for special students. Actually, disabled people taught me to always be thankful for the blessings given by God. Although they are not physically perfect, but they still want to continue to struggle to achieve their ambitions. For them, the disability is not an obstacle to success.

NURSYAHIRAH BINTI ABDUL RAHMAN

Our group Ihearthelping had done three activities for the Social Engagement course. The activities are attended Understanding Disability through DET workshop, joining Walkathon Walk a Hope and doing decoration at the school.

From the workshop activities, I had learn many things regarding on the disability. Before this as I had mentioned before I really don’t about the persons with disability, feel awkward to be close to them because they do not understand what they want and do not know the right way to helps them. So through this workshop I learned about the definition of disability so that I no longer confused about the actual definition for the disabled. Actually is not because of the inability of a person's physical person but because of the barriers disabled people face it. The interesting thing which I can learn is how the right way to help the disabled. Moreover, from here I feel thankful for the blessings God has given physical perfection because when I was given the opportunity to feel not seen in the workshop when I had to walk with my eyes closed. It very difficult because we do not know whether the presence of danger or not.

For the Walkathon activities, the activities is really good to create bonding with the team members and meet the disable kids and treat them well through this kind of program. Actually, before this program held, I thought its hard to interact with disable kids because I think they might be hard to control and they won’t listen to us because I had an experience dealing with autism kid. But it different from my expectation. The kids are really cute and nice. They are behave and listen to us.  Lastly, through the activities of decoration the school carried out this time, I had learned a lot of things, especially things from the team. For this we were assigned to carried out some activities in the group and I was in the group of 20 with my course mates. From this activities my friend and I have learned to had a good cooperation with each other to ensure the fitness room and reading corner can be completed in a short time. I had learned how to have a good communication with them. In a team we must have a good cooperation and communication to make sure all the things are smooth. So this is what I learned from this activities. Another things is in a team we cannot do tasks by own then we need to delegate and divide the task accordingly.

SIOW MEE QI

When I engaged myself in the course of social engagement, I learned a lot of unexpected things. Those things I had never think of I will learn about it during my live. I knew more about the disabled.

I am staying at the 7th residential college, the only college that prepared facilities for the disable.  Before engaging myself in the social engagement course , when I saw those who disable I will feel sad, and feel they are so pity because there are many restrictions in their life due to their disabilities and I wasn’t know how to help them.

However, after I attended the Disability Equality Training(DET) , Encik Hafiz from Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat taught us a lot of things. The disable wasn’t disable although they might lack of some abilities , they are still able to do everything, and manage their daily life, just like us. Moreover, I learned how I can help them during DET, as the simplest how can I guide the blind in the correct way.

Next, I attended the Walk-A-Thon as a helper that held by the 7th residential college in order to do the fund raising for upgrading the facilities for the disable. I met a lot of child that from the special education school. Maybe they are a little bit different from the normal child, but for me, they are still adorable kids. I knew that it’s nothing different between us and the disable, we are the same .

Lastly, we went Sekolah Kebangsaan Sri Damai and helped the teachers the decorate the reading corner and the fitness room. We hope that the kids can enjoy reading and can have a nice fitness room during their study life. Meanwhile, when I was doing the decoration works with my teammates, I felt that we can be like a family although we are from different background and different races.

SITI FATIMAH BINTI UBAYATHULLAH

We had done about 3 programme for our social engagement. The programme were DET, Walkathon and also ‘gotong-royong’ in a primary school. Each of the programme had be done on different time and different place.

From the DET programme I learnt a lot of things especially about disable people. The speaker who is also an OKU (blind) give us a very meaningful talk about how to contact and threat persons with disability. We had gone through practical session with our own team mates on how to guide blind people when they walk. After all , as usual we had our question and answer sessions with the speaker and also with the teachers who came from ‘sekolah pendidikan khas’.

The second programme was a programme we collaborate with another society that is Walkathon. It was a really big event held at UM Arena with a lot of disable student from schools, university and also some society. It was really amazing to join them since we had a chance to talk and interact with those kids. It makes me to be more appreciate with what I have and feel thankful for the beautiful life.

The last programme was the programme held at ‘sekolah pendidikan khas’ where we went there to help the staff to clean up and decorate the study area for the disable students. From that programme I started to know more details about all of my teammates, we help each other and also work together to make sure all the work done properly. That were all the activities we had done for social engagement which give me a lot of experience and moral values.

OOI SEET NEE

             I am Ooi Seet Nee, matric number EIA160169, student from Faculty Economy and Administration. All along the way I took the Social Engagement Course, I had done 3 activities which was having workshop & simulation (Understanding Disability through DET), being helper for one of the project of Residential College Za'ba, Walkathon, and decorating the study corner for SK Sri Damai. Throughout these activities that I had done with my classmates, I have learnt how to organize the activities and cooperate with others. Besides that, I have also learnt that how to help the disability. Gratitude of the OKU is very inspiring me. 

PRIVINA BALAKRISHNAN

Greetings,

Myself Privina Balakrishnan would like to extend a huge gratitude to University of Malaya and the Faculty of Economics and Administration for giving me this opportunity to take part in this social engagement course. Throughout this activity I have learnt so many things such as tolerating and cooperating with my team members and also engaging well with people around me. For an instance,  together we prepared a study corner and a fitness room for the use of students of SK Seri Damai, Petaling Jaya. It’s  was a great experience on doing something useful for the school students. We really hope that this facility will become a tremendous encouragement for the students to study. To conclude,  I am very sure that this course brought a huge positive impact on each individual in my team including myself.

SYAZWANA ADNIN BINTI ROZLAN

Assalamualaikum and hi !

I'm Syazwana Adnin binti Rozlan, EIA160205 from the Faculty of Economics and Administration. First of all, our team name is iHeartHelping (I was the one suggested that name and Alhamdulillah my teammates agree with it) . In this semester, all the students were compulsory to take a subject named Social Engagement and we were required to community service in groups. My group consists of 20 people and it was challenging as all of us have different kind of views and ideas. There are some reflections I wanted to express here regarding the work I've done for this whole semester being in the Publicity and Multimedia team.

The challenging part being in the media team was designing the tee shirts for the whole team. Finding the right colour, re-designing the whole look, getting suggestions from the other team members and dealing with the tee shirt dealer. Fortunately, the shirt done on time although I ordered it last minute. It was tough for me because I have never design nor order shirts for a big number of people. While doing that, I've discovered some new skills that could help me in the future.

What did our team do for the community service? Well, the first part was Disability Equality Training (DET) done by a speaker who is also a disabled (this person inspired all of us). DET is a training program about how to clearly understand people with disabilities. This was my second time in this training and my favourite part was the simulation where everyone need to covered up their eyes and walked around with the help of the walking-stick. It was a new experience for us because we finally understand how it feels when you can't see anything. The first event was a success for our team. 

Next, our lecturer asked us to join a program done by the residential college, Walkathon Walk-A-Hope. This event was a big event and I'm glad to be part of it. The event took place in a stadium and it involves primary school students until the university level students with disabilities. We were in charged on sports and games and it was so fun seeing the kids and teens enjoyed on being at the event that day. The second event was another success for the whole team!

Last part of our community service were decorating the classroom and reading corner for the special needs students at Sekolah Sri Damai. Our teamwork on that day was excellent as all of us giving so much ideas on how we can decorate the place into a beautiful one. We drew sports icons and place it on the wall, bought new bookshelves, and even painted the reading corner with bright colours so that the children will be more happy to read. Furrthermore, we did left our marks by hand-painted the wall with stamping our hands and the wall look incredibly beautiful. 

Okay, time has running out and was hoping that I could tell more of my experience but overall, I am happy to be part of the iHeartHelping family with a motherly lecturer, Dr Rohana Jalil. Thank you for everything you did for us and how you managed to unite all of us in a very short period through the activities we did. Social Engagement did help me see that we need to help others and understands their situation before judging them.