Experience is the best teacher.

Reflection
By: Mohd Zafran Qayyum Bin Mohd Zaki
CEB 150085

Phase 1

Our first Grand Meeting

            It was never easy to be a leader as the responsibility held is big and I am worried that I might do mistakes. Eventually I accepted to be the leader of the group and I tried to improve myself everyday especially in communication skill. Gladly, our supervisor, Dr. Zalfa helped me a lot in giving advises and ideas on what program and activities we should do. Like any other program that I had joined as committee member before, first of all I need to construct a proper and detailed planning regarding on the program. If I had overlooked, the entire program may be affected in term of the duration and activities thus, a backup plan is a must. Due to my previous experience, I learnt that I have problem in delegating tasks, ultimately, I am doing tasks outside of my position. There is a quote saying that “experience is the best teacher” which I fully agree on this quote. Preparation is the most difficult part after the implementation, meetings after meetings and discussions after discussions. Thankfully, all of the committee member are giving their full cooperation and brainstorming ideas to make the program in the course of what it should be. Finally, we agreed on doing our Social Engagement with Dapur Jalanan Kuala Lumpur and visiting Sekolah Bimbingan Jalinan Kasih.

Phase 2

Day 1
(20/3/2016)

Small place yet comfortable for food prepping

Beautiful mural

            20^th March was the first day with Dapur Jalanan Kuala Lumpur of with their taglines “Makanan adalah hak anak semua bangsa”. In collaboration with the organizer this activities will be involving feeding the homeless people in Kuala Lumpur. I have reached there 2 hours earlier before the program starts and had our breakfast there because I thought I can have a little sightseeing before 1 pm but there is nothing interesting to see. I have reached the Dapur Jalanan club which located on the 3^rd floor of shop lot which are hard to find but the logistic team already done their part to find the place a week before. 

Sliced-up fruits

It was fun preparing the food because personally I look to cook myself and I helped in cutting the fruits and preparing the sandwiches. I can see how the bond of friendship created by helping out each other. The organizer want to make sure that their food prepared are hygienic and healthy for the homeless people. I am amazed how they are very passionate in helping the homeless people and giving them the best food they can offer to them. Dapur Jalanan also have a ‘favourite menu’ for them which shows how caring they are to the homeless people and want them to eat even they are not blood-related or a family to them. 

Recycling in progress

After the food preparation and prayer, I head to Jalan Kemuja where I will be helping them distributing the food. Well that what I was thought but then I got into the hygiene team. I was told that we are going to make sure the place are clean, separate plastic container, and keep their leftovers to be recycled. It was a great idea besides feeding the homeless while conserving the environment at the same time. 

Having a small chit-chat

After that, I had small conversation with one of the homeless people, he had a family in Kedah and he was fired as a security guard of a bank for no clear reason. Unemployed yet he love to be homeless and carefree. Time flies, I had short sharing session with the organizer and they want some feedback from us and helped them to grow but promoting their cause.

A job well done!

Day 2
(21/3/2016 – 23/3/2016)

            The day where we started our fundraising which I have sold 13 muffins which cost RM2.00 per piece. The profits we gain from this fundraising activities will be used to buy presents and rewards for the children in Sekolah Bimbingan Jalinan Kasih. It was fairly quick to sell all the muffins because of my supporting friends at college. I am thankful that I have a friends who are willing to help out in my fundraising without expecting to get back something in return. This activity gives me the reason to work harder to give something to reward the children for participating in our activities and for behaving as well.

 Day 2
(25/3/2016)

A unique school it is

            25^th of March, it was my first time visiting Sekolah Bimbingan Jalinan Kasih. I was surprised how small the school is and it was secluded as well. I was told that the students from that school come from a dysfunctional family which some of them are abused and some of them are child out of wedlock. It was unexpected to see how well they are behaving compared to my own school. The school is very clean and well maintained with zero vandalism which was unexpected. 

A short introduction by the SBJK Headmaster

So on that day I will be conducting program for the preschoolers. In my family I am the youngest and getting along with children was hard. But then I am getting better at teaching as well giving them the brotherly love. At first, I felt the feeling having a little brother while doing so. It was fun because every one of them have a different attitudes but they are not rude or naughty that I could not control when they are misbehaving. 

Enjoying the dance

What I learned from this activity is that how sensitive children can be especially with their different background and I am not asking any questions that are related to their families. Other than that, I can understand how children behaving and their learning stage so I can implement this knowledge in the future.

Movie time

We will come back again!

Day 3
(17/4/2016)

The same briefing

Now with RTM Crew recording us!

            17^th of April, it was the second time I visited Sekolah Bimbingan Jalinan Kasih. After a short briefing by the headmaster and aerobic session, we started our program namely Explorace. This activity was my idea because it should be fun to a have some competition in the school. It is a race but there are challenges to overcome which consists of 8 different stations throughout the school. My station was ‘Build a Tower’ by using 30 straws with two other friends which located in their class. It is easy for children to build a tower but ensuring the tower to stand still is another different story. They have to use their creativity while maintaining the structure of the tower. I can see how their creativity and a good teamwork among the children overcoming the challenge together. 

Simple yet sturdy

Moreover, some of them already have a strong leadership skill and it should be polished more to become a potential leader. After Friday prayer, the winner for the game is announced and the ceremony continues even some of them already went back to their home. To be fair among the children, each and every one of them will be getting prizes even they are in the last places so none of them felt they had lost.

Congrats!

Day 4
6/5/2016

It is coming to an end where today is the day we had a closing ceremony with SBJK. Today is the day where we are going to have some fun with the children with drawing and decorating the canteen with it. So as our morning routine, we are going to start our activities with a little exercise and ends with a swift moving zumba dance. I can see how the children enjoyed the session but the conducter for that session had to do it under the hot sun. I'm thankful to them for conducting this session and I never heard a single whined from them. The first part of the session we had a warm up session and for the zumba dance we played a "Merdeka" song by Faizul Sani with a dancing choreograph from our past MHS. It was hard for the children to follow our moves at first but we did change the choreograph to make it simpler. So it does takes sometimes for the children to get the moves but they still are having fun.

Then we move to our next session where the children are told to draw anything they like. A piece of small coloured papers were given to them while the teachers provides them the colour pencils. Some of them is good at drawing even I have problem drawing until now. Their creativity are shown in that piece of paper and some of them draws house. It made me think for awhile that maybe he wanted to have a comfortable place to stay with his family. Maybe he do not even own a house to stay currently. I should be more grateful because I was pretty a spoiled son back then when I was little. Time flies, the children still have not finish with their drawing and insist to pass it up to front. Obviously, most of them really do like drawing so we gave them some times to finish their drawing. After that we, start to decorate the canteen with their drawing.

After the recess we continue our program with speeches. I know how it feels what you are in your audience shoes especially when you are still a children and listening to speech is the most boring thing you ever did. But still a proper closing should have a formal thanks speeches from our lecturer represent as Faculty of Business and Accountancy UM and me representing as one of the group leaders. Before we start our closing ceremony we had a 'cheers battle' with the school and it is the most fun part for that day. I had to shout and I did it. It felt weird shouting like that because I never did that before in my life in front of many people. Still we had a lot of fun during that time. 

I had to make a text speech because I always have this problem talking in public where I always stutter when I have no idea what to say during the speech. I even lacking of presentation skills where I am still learning how to get audience attention. So speech after speech, it came to my turn to talk where I am not nervous but I am afraid that I failed to attract the audience. I did it anyway, I tried to get their attention by shouting 'Tepuk 1.. Tepuk 2". I continue my speech and it takes time because of my 2 pages text. We ended our closing ceremony with photo session.

 After prayer and lunch, we had a little party where we bought them 2 cakes. We called up the children who is May babies to the front. We sang a happy birthday song to them and we managed to make them smile. Then we had live band performing from our group and the SBJK Buskers. Both of the performance was amazing. It's the time to say farewell it was sad to leave them and I really do hope to see them to be successful person in the future. I can still remember where this kid keep hugging me and it made heart sunks to leave him.


Phase 3

What I learnt from this course is that there are 2 types of people, inward mindset and outward mindset. People with outward mindset tend to do the task in any way they can and focused on the effort given to get the best result, while the inward mindset are more focused in accomplishing the objective only. Some of us have an outward mindset which I am truly grateful to have them in the team. Still the other are giving their full commitment contribution in finishing the job. I learnt that communication is the utmost important element in an organization. Every time I send a message to the group messaging, I was very particular in each and every word I said because I wanted to make sure they will understand. The last thing I want is miscommunication in an organization’s committees. The effect from miscommunication can be deep where everyone will get confused and do their task wrongly. So every problem I made from the past I able to make it right, as there are saying “experience is the best teacher”. But there one problem that I am facing from which is my personality. I am an introverted person and I do not like to talk unless I have to. Speaking can be exhausting for me especially during the meetings. Stepping out of the comfort zone is a difficult things to do. But I managed to do so because I have will to change myself. Lastly, I learn from Dr. Zalfa that I must be more firm. It is true that sometimes we have to be stricter in certain situation. For example, when they are reluctant to do their assigned task. For the conclusion there are still more gaps to improve for myself to be a better person.