Weaknesses of HTN

As a matter of fact, our group too faced some weaknesses at the time doing our community service. Firstly, our group in the process of preparation failed to raise more fund from the public for donation. Besides that, due to the lack of funds, we were not able to supply more daily needs that the welfare society had requested. Another weakness that we were facing was time management. In fact, we did not carried out our community service in the time we have discussed in our group discussion which caused some activities unable to be conducted. Lastly, even though we had a lot of fun with the children there, but we have failed to have more communication session with the old folks when we were doing some cleanings at the old folks home.

Strengths of HTN

Our group, HTN are having a good team spirit during the community service. We communicated well on what should we do and what should we prepare for the children home. We have clear objectives while doing this project. Although our group leader Shi Yun delegated our works for every one of us, yet we still helping each other on their work once we had done our part. This may boost our team spirit as we feel like family helping each other without any conflict occurs. Even though before doing this community service, we might not know all of our group members as some of them meet each other for the first time during the meeting, in fact we still feel comfortable while doing the whole project with each other. Overall we had a good teamwork and good corporation was formed among us.

Reflection 3

INTRODUCTION

Despite the fieldwork being carried out for the HTN group’s community service, the members have indeed realized that such meaningful activities should not cease with the ending of our project. Therefore, we decided to do something to deliver messages to the community while encouraging them to engage in relevant activities. 

Keeping in mind the purpose of obtaining an excellent result, the group members had proposed different ideas of serving the messages. For example, delivering pamphlets, creating social media pages and organizing campaign of relevant theme. After further discussion, we decided to create a social media page, either on Facebook or a blog, for the purpose of communication with the general public. The rationale is that it is a fairly cost-effective method and is likely to attain a satisfied result. 

Specifically, we intended to include our own experience in the social media page, in order to strike a responsive chord in the hearts of the community. As such, we planned to explore every facet of our project down to the finest detail, with the intention of impressing the general public with an interesting example, and encourage them to organize their own project while taking part in relevant activities. Concerning the purposes and aims, we were aware that the social media pages should be attractive to impress any random viewer. Thus we decided to display the information in the form of words, pictures and videos. We have also distributed relevant tasks to the group members, where some would do the construction of the social media page, while the others bear the responsibility of promoting it. 

Technically speaking, we wish to deliver the messages to any potential individual, regardless of his age, race and religion. However, we have instead set a target group of people for the delivery of our message so as to achieve the best desired effect. Our messages intended to be more affective on teenagers, particularly on students. We realized that this group of people have a rather flexible time and potential in providing actual service to the society, compared to working persons who are more likely to only make donations as a form of support. 

I am indeed passionately in favour of the plan of delivering messages to the community, since it is a good way to promote community service among the general public through an actual example of our own experience. I have also found myself to be more pleased at doing community service, as well as encouraging others to do so. 

BODY PARAGRAPH 

At the preliminary stage of implementing our plan, we consulted Mr Kelvin Ooi, who is the administrator of Ti-Ratana Welfare Society with regards to the plan. Mr Kelvin Ooi was supportive to our plan of serving messages to the community, but had made a requirement to us to not upload the photos to the social media pages. As he explained, children and old folks who are living in the welfare centre came from different backgrounds, some being unpleasant, thus it would be inappropriate to place them on the focus point. Indeed, what they need is caring, but not sympathy. 

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE 

Supporting evidence 1: 

 This is the blog created by the HTN group to serve our message to the community, with the link being www.helping-the-needy.blogspot.my. 

Supporting evidence 2: 

We have encouraged people around us to read our blog, hopefully to raise public awareness to serve the community. 

ACTIVITIES

With the understanding on the objects’ conditions and other considerations, we eventually decided to create a blog for the delivery of messages. As it is commonly noted that a blog can afford to have its content deliver by hundreds of servers around the world instead of just one. In particular, it is believed to be more effective to achieve our objectives than through a Facebook page since the readers will be able to concentrate on the contents of our post rather than being perfunctory with their ‘Likes’. 

We first described our community service project in the blog, without any single detail being omitted. We hope that the readers would be able to concern with the detailed objectives of our project, instead of looking only at the surface of things. The only difficulty that we faced in this process is that due to the restriction on uploading pictures, we will need to pay special attention to write in a way which has a similar effect of affecting the readers. However, we soon worked it out with the cooperation of the group members. 

We have also given a true account of our feelings and thoughts about our project, in order to produce a good writing that resonates the readers with our experience and lead them to a thoughtful consideration. In fact, we have also planned to manage the blog in a long term as we hope to keep the community updated on what we discovered from any other relevant projects. As such, we considered the blog as an outlet to help people do the right things for sake of the community. 

In order to expand the popularity of our blog, we first shared the link to other social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, for the attention of the others. Furthermore, we promoted the blog to people around us. With the creation of their awareness, we would also encourage them to share the information among their friends and relatives. Moreover, we were pleased to receive any feedback from the community, so that we can keep the information up to date, and make improvement on our service. 

CONCLUSION

It is well said that “You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” As such, we sincerely hope that through our own experience, we would be able to raise certain awareness among the public, and motivate their participation in doing community service. In fact, there are different areas that people may render their help to, such as donating to the needy, volunteering services to non-profit organizations in their activities, and even helping relevant associations to improve the plight of stray animals. It is an aim of our project to rouse the responsibility within the community to help each other, especially towards those in need.

Appreciation post

People always say that happiness is contagious and we really believe in this fact when we saw the kids. They were so lovely and heart-warming. We still remember the first time when they saw us, we could see their exciting face and feel all the 'happy virus' jumping in them.

Goodbyes are always hard but we believe that in the future, we will visit here or maybe some other welfare society more often (not for the project) but simply to help the needy.

Lastly, we would love to thank the Ti-Ratana Welfare Society in giving us the chance to serve the community by helping those in needs. Through this community service project, we are able to have a deeper and clearer look into the community. Besides, we also hope that our blog can raise public awareness and encourage community participation in doing community service (in different field) as there are other people, animals and things which is in urgent need of our helps.

Reflection 2

As already stated in Reflection 1, my group members and I, the HTN Group has decided to volunteer our services to Ti-Ratana Welfare Society. We are planning to take a visit to their orphanage so that we could understand the life of the children and could give them some necessary help. 

As we have already raised some funds within our group members, we have spent that money to buy some daily supplies for the orphanage before our community service. According to their wish list, we have bought some essential items such as rice, noodles, bread, milk, soap powder etc. We have also packed up some of our old clothes and donated them to the orphanage. Besides, our group members have prepared some ready-made ingredients such as bread, eggs, ham, cheese and cucumber in order for the children to make their own sandwiches during the breakfast DIY session. We have also prepared some colour papers and cut them into square as we’ve planned to teach the children to make origami.

According to the itinerary of our fieldwork, we will be doing our community service for 2 days i.e. on 23rd October 2015 and 29th October 2015. On 23rd October 2015, we will gather at Ti-Ratana Welfare Society at 8:30am and do some preparation before the event starts. The breakfast DIY session will be start at 9am and we will guide the children to make their sandwiches with the ingredients that we’ve already prepared. The breakfast DIY session will be conducted for 1 hour and around 10am, some of us will help the centre to clean the orphanage and the remaining members will act as tutors to help the children with their studies.

On 29th October 2015, our services will start on 10am and all of us will gather at the centre at 9:30am for preparation. We will be celebrating the Universal Children’s Day with the children on that day. After gathering the children, we will distribute some small gifts to them and around 10:30am, we will be having some games and activities such as drawing class, hand-painting, singing and dancing session with them. We hope that the children could enjoy their day well.

During our fieldwork, Shi Yun is the organising chairperson of our event. She will monitor the progress of the event and give instructions to our members. Besides, Serene who is the vice organising chairperson of our group will also assist Shi Yun to monitor and control the event. I, She Mei, as the secretary of the group will help to record the progress of the event. I will also take the role as being the photographer of our events. Juliet is the program coordinator of our group who planned for the event and will coordinate the events during our fieldwork whereas Keng Sang, the treasurer of our group will be helping in recording our expenditure. As being a publicity coordinator, Wai Loon will create and manage a social media page in order to create public awareness. The remaining members will also assist all of us and helping us to record videos for the event.

For this community service, we have tried our best to plan and prepare for the events. It is not easy to plan these activities alone and thus teamwork is necessary in order for the events to be successfully held. We hope that the events can go through smoothly and the children can enjoy their day with us. We also hope that our efforts could gain attentions from the public and thus encourage more community participation.

Preparation before breakfast DIY session

During the first day of fieldwork, after getting our visitor pass, Mr Ooi, the administrator of the society has gave us a small briefing for our services. He told us about the background of the society and gave us some guidance on how should we treat the children. He told us that those children are no difference compare to others. The society act as their parents, provide them with shelter and education. Thus, we should treat them normally and solicitude them.

After a short briefing, Mr Ooi brought us to the children shelter to meet up with the children. The children were very happy and excited when they saw us. During the breakfast DIY session, we have made some sandwiches together with the children and have prepared some milk for them. Each of us has to take care one of the children and fed them as some of them were unable to eat by themselves. The children were very happy and enjoy during the session.

Making sandwiches with the children

After the breakfast DIY session, the children have to prepare to go to the kinder-garden at 11am. Thus, we started to clean the orphanage. Some of us sweep and mop the floor and some of us help them to put back the tables and chairs. After sending the children to the car, Mr Ooi suggested us to take a visit to the old folks home and do some cleaning works there. After greeting to the old folks, we started to clean their room. We helped them to sweep and mop the floor and clean the windows as most of them are too old and inconvenient. Besides, some of us have talked to the old folks and concerning about their health. Around 12:30pm, we have finished our tasks and left the centre.

Cleaning the Old Folks Home

On 29th October 2015, we took our second visit to the orphanage. During the day, we have distributed some jelly and sweets to the children as being the gifts for the Universal Children’s Day. After that, we planned to do some art work with those children such as making origami, drawing and colouring. We taught and guide them to fold the colour papers into ‘heart shape’ and ‘swan shape’. The children also drew and coloured their origami creatively and happily. Most of them are very smart and all of us enjoy in interacting with the children.

Origami made by the children

After the art work session, it was their lunch time before going to the kinder-garden. We fed the children patiently and they finish their meal happily without wasting any of the food. We helped them to clean the tables and mop the floors after the children went to school. Some of the children were very sad as they don’t want us to leave. Thus, we’ve promise to visit them again when we are free. Before leaving the centre, we thanked Mr Ooi for giving us an opportunity to do community service in their welfare society. He also welcomed us to visit the children anytime in the future.

Feeding the children

It was indeed a great experience to do community service in Ti-Ratana Welfare Society. From the service, we’ve learned to contribute to the community more as there are many people who need solicitude from us. Hence, I hope that I could have more opportunities to volunteer my service to other society in the future.

**Note: The face of the children are mosaicked as per requested by the organization in order to protect their privacy.**

List of Activities

Day 1 - 23th October 2015:

Breakfast DIY Session

• To guide the children on making themselves a healthy breakfast sandwich
• To educate the children about the food pyramid
• To let the children know the importance of having a healthy breakfast
• To have fun with the children before sending them off to school

Clean-up Session (Senior Residence)

• Cleaning the interior and the porch of the senior residence 
• To reduce the burden of the workers 
• To promote a clean and safe environment for the old folks

Day 2 - 29th October 2015:

Arts & Crafts Session

• Origami (paper folding), drawing & coloring 
• To encourage creativity 
• To encourage social interaction 
• To boost self-confidence 
• To improve patience

Clean-up Session

• Cleaning the activity corner of the children’s home 
• To Reduce the burden of the workers 
• To promote a clean and safe environment for the children

Second Day of Fieldwork: 29 October 2015

Hello there readers, now we are going to share about our second visit to the orphanage which is on the 29th of Oct (Thurs).

In the morning when we first reached the orphanage, we did the same thing which is to register ourselves in the office before we can meet up with the children.

This time we brought many things (daily supplies) to the orphanage for the centre and the children.

 Stories books

 Clothes

Rice, eggs and etc.

In the second visit, our activity was to do some art work with the children such as making origami, drawing and colouring. Our members taught and gave them instructions in how to fold the paper into different types of objects.

 One of our group member showing the kids how to make the origami

The children were so serious and concentrate in making the origami

After an hour, the children finally finished their art work.

Heart shape origami made by the children :)

Just by looking into the photo above, we can feel their love in making the heart shape origami. It was actually a simple activity with the children but throughout the whole process, we could feel their happiness and they were really enjoying the whole paper folding and colouring process of their art work.

After the paper folding session with the children, it's their time again to get ready for school. 'Goodbyes' were said again to the children but this time we were unwilling to leave because we know that here ends our community service.

We passed back our 'visitor pass' to the office. Before leaving the welfare society, Mr Ooi came to have a short talk with us and thank us for taking care and helping the children in the orphanage. As a courtesy, we also showed our appreciation to Mr Ooi and his colleagues. Around 12pm, we leave Ti-Ratana Welfare Society and went back our home.

First Day of Fieldwork (Part 2): 23 October 2015

After we distributed the sandwiches to the children and make sure that they finished their food and drinks, they were called to go back to their room to get prepare for school (kindergarten). The person in charge told us that the children will be going to the kindergarten at 11am so we stopped our activity with them and start our cleaning jobs.

Cleaning the orphanage

When we finished the cleaning jobs in the orphanage, the children were ready to go to the kindergarten. Some of the children were actually very sad when they know they are not going to meet us later. After all the 'goodbyes' session, Mr Ooi came and check on our progress. He later suggested to take us to the old folks home to have a look and do some cleaning jobs there. We agreed and followed him to the old folks home which is just opposite the orphanage.

 Sweeping and moping the floor

 Cleaning the windows

It's around 12pm when we completed all the cleanings in the old folks home. We reported to the office and returned them the visitor pass before we leave. It was indeed a great and fun day to visit the orphanage and old folks home. We are really looking forward to the next trip here! :)

First Day of Fieldwork (Part 1): 23 October 2015

In the previous post, we have decided to carry out our community service in the Ti-Ratana Welfare Society. Our main planning is to visit the orphanage there and provide some helps for the orphans by supplying them with some daily supplies. Besides, we also planned have some 'fun and games' session with the children over there.

We paid our first visit to the orphanage on the 23rd Oct (Friday) and had a few activities with the children of Ti-Ratana Welfare Society.


The views when we first reached the welfare society.

The entrance to their office.

When we first reached, we registered ourselves to the registrar and get our 'visitor pass' in order to enter into their buildings. After that, Mr Ooi, who is the administrator of the welfare society came and gave us a briefing before we actually meet the children.

 

Briefing session 

In the briefing session, we were able to understand more about the background of this organisation and all the hard work they have done in starting this welfare society. Mr Ooi told us that they are not sponsored by the government but only by some individual donators and voluntary agencies. This means that all the daily supplies for the children and old folks come from the community. We were so surprised when we heard about this because it shows us that there are still many people in this society which is willing to give care and show solicitude for the needy.

After the briefing, Mr Ooi brought us to the second floor to meet up with the children.

The views when we are on our way to meet the children.

It was around 9.30am when we got to meet up with the children. There were 10 of them who will be having activities with us. We still remember that they were so excited when they saw us. Firstly, we made them sit on the chairs and wait for their food to be served as we had prepared some sandwiches and milk for the children to eat.

 Our members waiting to distribute the food.

 The children were so excited when they see the food.

When the children are having their meals, our members looked after them as some of the children are still unable to eat by themselves. The whole process were indeed happy and harmony because the children cooperated with us. I have to say that the kids are really clever and lovely.

Reflection 1

Community service is performed by a person or a group of people for the benefit of the public or its institutions. Many universities require that their students perform community service for some specific number of hours to graduate in the form of a service-learning course. Our university, Brickfields Asia College, has made community service a compulsory subject as well.

Eight of my classmates and I formed a group with the name 'HTN (Helping the Needy)'. As the name suggests, we wish to provide what we can to aid those who are in need. Before coming to our final decision, we held several meetings to suggest, discuss and to do research on the tasks were to conduct. We originally planned to volunteer in a soup kitchen organisation to help distribute food to the homeless people on the streets but eventually rejected the idea as several problems arose, mainly concerning our transportation and safety as some of our members do not drive (the activity requires flexible transportation) and the activity is to be performed late at night (most of our members are female).

We finally made a decision to provide our service at an orphanage as the International Children’s Day was just around the corner. We wish to bring as much happiness as possible to the abandoned and the neglected children, so that they can understand that they are not alone or left behind and the society actually cares for them and they are still loved. Through this task, we also wish to raise public awareness concerning these groups of children in the society and encourage people to participate in community services as well.

We started to communicate with several welfare organizations for the permission to conduct community service at their centre. Eventually, one of the welfare societies responded to us. It was Ti-Ratana Welfare Society, one of the largest NGOs in Malaysia based in Desa Petaling, Kuala Lumpur which is a charitable organization that runs three children homes with over 250 children, two seniors' residences with about 50 senior citizens, a shelter home for women, and mobile clinics to provide free medical services to the people in the rural areas. Their mission is to provide shelter, education and care to the underprivileged members of the community, i.e. children or orphans, women and senior citizen. Their slogan is "Lift a hand, light a heart".

We were required by Ti-Ratana to submit a detailed program layout. A verbal permission was given and we had to make further discussions on the date of our visit. In the meantime, we had started writing a proposal to our university to acquire permission for the task that we are going to conduct. A blog has also been created to raise public awareness and is currently under construction. We had also started raising funds and looking for sponsorships. We presented our proposal to our university and an approval letter was later granted along with an official letter from BAC to Ti-Ratana, to seek final approval from the welfare society. A final approval was granted by the organisation soon after. We will be visiting Ti-Ratana Welfare Society on the 23rd and 29th of October 2015.

I am pleased with the decision our group has made. Despite being hesitant initially, I did not change my mind once the decision was made. My expectations were made as the task allows me to do my best and provide what I can to help those who are in need. Through this I would also gain precious social experiences that I would not be able to gain elsewhere and to be involved with the world around me. I would be able to get a glimpse of the lives of the unfortunate and to observe how they cope with their less fortunate circumstances. At this stage of our community service subject, I have learned to be more grateful to what I have as there are many more who are not as fortunate as me. Also, being the group leader of HTN, I have learned that there will be a great amount of responsibility ahead for me to bear and I will have to work hard. I will also have to look out for my members and respect each and every one of their opinions. I have to be rational and firm with my future decisions for the group and work well with everyone so that our mission can be successful. 

(Discussing the task of our community service.)

(Fellow group members presenting the proposal.)

On the 23rd of October, we are planning to have a breakfast DIY session with the children in order to educate them of the importance of having a healthy breakfast to start off a new day. We will be providing the ingredients such as bread, tuna, cucumber, ham, cheese, etc. For the safety of the children, they will only have to put the ready-made ingredients together and no cutting or any dangerous act is required. We will guide the children while referring to and explaining the food pyramid. After the breakfast session, our group will be separated into two teams. There will be one team to help with the cleaning and another team to act as tutors as to help the children with their studies.

On the 29th of October, some gifts will be given out to the children when we arrive in the morning to lighten up the mood. This is also to celebrate the Universal Children's Day in advance. The gifts will be school stationary. After that, there will be some games and activities that we have organized for the children. The activities include hand-painting, drawing class, singing and dancing, treasure-hunt and straw-building.

This is the first time any of us has ever organised a community service event. On normal occasions, I would merely take part as a member and go along with what the higher-ups decide. This is definitely a fresh new experience for me and although I am still lacking in the knowledge of certain formal procedures, I receive lot of help from those around me which I really appreciate. I anticipate the experience and the lessons I will learn throughout this event. I look forward to the days of the visit and I hope that everything will go well as planned.

Community Service - Caring the orphans

In the previous week, we (HTN) have decided on the community service that we will be doing which is to pay a visit to an orphanage.

There are over 143 million orphans around the world. If these children stood side by side they would form a line of children 30,000 miles long. Besides children who are orphaned (having lost one or both parents), there are countless children who live in a family unit who are vulnerable due to extreme poverty, hunger, thirst, abuse and neglect. A statistic actually showed that the numbers of unwanted children are growing day by day which also means that they are of little value to anyone else.    ~Children are precious! ! !~
Therefore, HTN would like to create a positive and loving environment in which the abandoned and neglected children feel being loved and cared by the community. Besides, HTN also wish to raise public awareness through the community services and encourage participation of the communities. 

Ti-Ratana Welfare Society Malaysia is a voluntary, not-for-profit, non-partisan and non-denominational community service society located in Salak South Bahru (Desa Petaling). It is one of the largest welfare organizations in Malaysia which aims to offer a community service in the spirit of compassion, to serve and to provide shelter and education to the needy regardless of gender, race and religion. 

We have made an appointment with the Ti-Ratana Welfare Society and have arranged a two-days-activities with the children there.

Activity dates will be:
- 23/10/15 (Fri)
- 29/10/15 (Thurs)

Lastly, we believe that our visit to the centre will be a great experience as helping the children does not only brings happiness to them but also us! :)