My first experience after enrolling for Community Service as one of my subjects was an EPIC homes workshop that we had to attend. The workshop involved us using hardware and tools like hammer, saw and all the heavy duty equipment. The EPIC homes workshop was all about building homes, not houses. EPIC home is an organisation that helps build homes for those who don’t have a home. The way they conduct this is by training builders to build a home for the unfortunate and aside from that, they also raise funds in order to support their building of homes for the poor.
The workshop has taught me to be grateful for our homes and for having a roof over my head and this often times has been overlooked and we constantly worry about the littlest things while there are people out there struggling to find a place and shelter to live in. Their generosity and kindness in helping to build homes for indigenous people who live in poverty really touched my heart and how you can change someone’s life so easily. I’m glad that I attended this workshop as it really has opened my eyes to a bigger picture.
We are so fortunate, too fortunate in fact that we forget the luxuries we have in life and we don’t value it as much as we should have. I hope one day I will be able to contribute whether in monetary terms or my physical help to change someone’s life and just take away the burden they’ve been facing. I look up to NGOs as they ask for nothing in return. They put so much effort, money and time into just helping another hand. Nowadays everything is very conditional. In order to have something, you have to give something in return. I hope our generation will not fall into category. I feel that community service will be able to shape and mould us youth to wake up and stand up for the society, to help and to care and to learn not to be selfish in this narcissistic world. Overall, I think this EPIC workshop has opened a lot of eyes and hearts and it really got all of us thinking.
WEEK 2: FIRST MEET UP WITH THE MENTEES
At 8.30am, we were required to be on campus to embark our journey to SMK Convent Sentul where we will be conducting our community service. This was my first time visiting the school and it brought back memories back when I was in high school. I was also in an All-Girl School so I could relate to the students there. Taylor’s University provided us the transportation to the school and it took about one hour to get to the school where we were first greeted by the security guard who directed our lecturer, Ms.Rabi’ah to the teacher in charge.
We waited at the canteen before their extra tuition class for the students also known as our mentees to commence. Some of my classmates had their breakfast there and we were astonished at how cheap the food was as compared to our university. It brought back so many memories from the past and it was very nostalgic. After our breakfast, we head to the classroom to tutor our mentees and helped them academically with their work to prep them for their upcoming exam.
Their school teacher was then teaching them mathematics on the chapter “Circles”. I was pretty bad in math back in high school up till before my last exam of high school (SPM) which will then decide my fate on which university I could/should attend. That was the time I bulked up and worked hard to achieve the impossible and to my surprise, I did. So I completely understand what the students are going through, because I went through it. My mentee at that time was Tan Hui Ling, she’s Chinese-educated thus she does not speak very fluent English, but after a while she seems to be able to understand what I’m trying to convey to her and thereafter she was able to conduct the questions all on her own, and at a faster pace than everyone else and so I gave her some extra questions to do for her to practice as practise makes progress when it comes to Mathematics.
She seem to have slowly gain her confidence after successfully completing each question correctly without my guidance. After tutoring, we proceed to a fun and interactive game which will stimulate our mentees brain towards maths as the game was mathematic-based. The game was conducted by one of my classmates; Carissa Cheong. The game involves everyone’s participation and it was based on multiples. So everyone was required to say a number starting from the first person; “1” ascending all the way. Those who has to say a number which is a multiple of 7 has to say fizz. The mentees seem to be very enthusiastic and excited to play and there were a few mistakes and lost ones here and there but it got very exciting in the end. Overall my first day with the mentees was pretty fun and enlightening.
WEEK 3: MATHEMATICS TUITION
We embark again on our journey to SMK Convent Sentul. Upon reaching the school, I was greeted by a few students which were not our mentees so it was delighting to see the students there so friendly and well-mannered. Our mentees were given worksheets to do which included some examination model paper which is a practice paper that is similar to what would be tested in their exams. I noticed that the level of understanding the questions was really low as my mentee could not understand the question due to the language barrier as she is Chinese-educated so even though the paper was bilingual, she could not understand both English and Malay very well so this was stumbling block for her. I had to explain in simpler English terms for her to understand and sometimes I had to draw the objects for her to visualise and imagine in order for her to understand better and she was slowly able to understand the question.
Solving it needed guidance but at least she finally understood the question. My classmate and I had to speak in Mandarin certain times in order to help her understand better but I encouraged my mentee to speak in English even though it may be broken but at least the effort is there and I told her that practicing speaking will be able to increase her confidence and she will learn better this way. It took me a while to recall certain mathematical formulas in order for me to solve and teach her the questions so it took a lot of quick thinking and breaking it down to simpler forms.
After that we proceed to playing yet again a fun and interactive game which involves addition with decimals. Everyone had a different price written on a card, for example: RM1.50. The game master, Nicholas Woo (one of my classmates) will shout out a price of RM5.00. The mentors and the mentees then have to work together to combine their price they have on the card to equal to RM5.00. This really helped all of the students in their addition skills and does it quickly since the fastest team to accumulate RM5.00 wins. All of us had a lot of fun and this helped us bond and fellowship with the mentees.
WEEK 5: TEACHING THE MENTEES ABOUT BUDGETING
We embark on our journey early on a Tuesday yet again to visit the Convent Girl School in Sentul but this time in a van. We split up into two separate groups as the van could not accommodate us all. As we arrived at the school, we went straight to the classroom to conduct our educational and interactive activity. It was nice to see the students there again especially the familiar faces as we know that they are consistently attending the extra class which will be beneficial for them. I also realised they enjoyed our company there since they were all smiles as soon as we walked in the door. All of them were looking forward to what we have planned for them.
Most of them are very talkative and enthusiastic, while some have been improving their outspokenness and slowly coming out of their shell. The activity we conducted was able to further push them and to evaluate their presentation skills. This was also a good method to help improve their confidence. We passed all of them a supermarket catalogue and they were required to plan their expenses with the given amount of money of RM150 to plan a party for 21 people. So they were required to purchase food and beverages for the party goers and we monitored how they make use of what they have. Also, this is a good practice for their mathematic skills as most of them struggled with trying to solve an equation (multiplication such as 4 x 5).
Most of the students there relied on the calculator. Therefore, I restricted them from using the calculator and encouraged them to count mentally instead. I had to use my fingers to demonstrate and illustrate how to multiply so that they could understand better. Also, I had to teach them on how to present their budget to their classmates. Some of them were shy and reluctant to speak up but after convincing them and encouraging them for a while, they eventually gave in and did their best. I was very proud to be able to contribute what I have learned back in high school to the students there.
WEEK 6: WELCOMING THE MENTEES TO OUR BEAUTIFUL CAMPUS
I arrived at campus at around 1pm and I head to the library to discuss with my classmates about the campus exploration we conducted for the mentees from SMK Convent Sentul who visited us on Tuesday, 4 November 2014. While they were having their scrumptious lunch at Temptations cafeteria, we were finalizing the few things for the campus exploration. The campus exploration was sort of a treasure hunt and amazing race concept whereby the mentees will be separated into groups and each group will be accompanied by a guide (mentor from Taylor’s) and they will be given clues along the way which requires them to move from one venue to another and they will be able to see all the wonderful facilities we have here on campus while conducting their campus exploration.
The fastest team to have collected all the clues with their respective answers and return back to base camp (one of the classrooms in Taylor’s) will be rewarded. I was stationed at the library’s computer lab. They were required to search all the clues (the clue has a word in it) given on the computer to find the answer (definition and example of those words). As they entered the computer lab, I could tell that they were very impressed with the amount of computers we have and how quiet the library is and so they had to oblige to the library rules too by being as discreet as possible while conducting their exploration despite their excitement inside. I could tell that they really enjoyed the campus exploration by the awe in their faces. I showed them how to use the computer in order to find resources such as a dictionary to find the meaning of the words given in the clues.
After that, I waited for all the groups to retrieve their clue and obtain their answers and I directed them back to the base camp (first meeting point at the classroom). We gave them all a sheet of paper which had questions on it. It was a questionnaire about their experience visiting Taylor’s and about their thoughts about the university. I could tell that all of them were weary that the day was about to end and some of them even said they would miss all of us. Honestly, I think I would miss them a lot too. It was a fun and humbling experience to be able to teach and to also learn to adapt to different environments, to lead and to listen, to learn and understand.
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