Kalai's Reflections

I never thought social engagement would be so much interesting and inspiring until we have completed our 32 hours service at Rumah Hope. It was such a great experience for all of us , especially for me at the home. I learned a lot from my communication with the kids and staff there. The head of the home was very kind and gave us information regarding the kids background. I was quite to hear all the stories of the abused and neglected kids. After hearing all the stories , I took a stand myself that I will be helping them I any means. During our first interaction, I was quite amazed by the kids whom are constantly running around and playing. They have so much energy but lack of love. That’s where we come in, we did our best to shower them love. They like to call me brother and invited me to play with them. It was fun and at same time thoughtful of how could the parents abuse and neglect all these kind souls. They want someone to care and for them to look up to. During this service, I managed to talk to few of them regarding their ambition and studies. They have ambition of their own but they don’t have someone to guide them. I even met a boy who wants to be a mechanical engineer and the others wants to be lawyer, police officer and teacher. These kids have dreams and passion to study but the memories of abuse triggered sometime and caused them to divert. I tried my best to motivate them to pursue their course of interest. From this course, I learned that we should be thankful of what we have than what we don’t have. Majority of us have parents and financially stable, a home for shelter and shoulder to cry. Besides that, I have also learned that in the near future we shall never abuse or neglect our kids. It is equivalent to committing a serious crime as the children future gets dark. As a conclusion I promise that I will sure help any homes or shelters as service. This is merely because if each and everyone of us help a home, there wont be a place in earth where there is no love and care. 

Carlwin's Reflections

When I first heard of this university course, GXEX 1417: Social Engagement, I was baffled as what we are supposed to do to complete this course. After having explained what we need to do and the objectives of this course, I thought this course is really special compared to others as we are required to interact with the society. The purpose why this course existed is to develop students’ concern about the outside community. We are required to engage with the world beyond University of Malaya.

After going through the 32-hour event in Rumah Hope, I had encountered lots of experience with the people there especially the kids. A lot of interaction going on between our group and the children of Rumah Hope. I know I am not very good with kids but I tried to entertain and play with them as much as I could.

During my visit, I was astounded to see the happy faces of children of age below 6. They were naughty, cheerful and happy go lucky. I could say the staffs are doing a good job raising these children. And surprisingly, all the children are obedient when they are asked to do their chores. As we have completed our social engagement in Rumah Hope, I must admit that it was really tiring yet memorable.  

Besides engaging with the people of Rumah Hope, we also help out with the kitchen and management. In the kitchen, we were asked to peel, cut, chop and wash to enhance their work progress for dinner. As the kitchen staff knew some of us, men are not that good with knife, they showed us the way and told us to be careful. In the management sector, we did some paperwork and answered some phone calls in the office. We volunteered ourselves to provide such services as we think that by helping out with all these work, we are actually putting our feet in their shoe. We are able to understand what it is like to manage an orphanage.

Mainul's Reflections

We took a Social engagement course this semester, where we had to do 32 hours of community work. The authorities at Rumah Hope agreed to let us lend them a hand, we were very grateful for that chance. Rumah Hope is an orphanage that shelters neglected, abused children from broken homes.

The social engagement was a very rewarding one, especially for me. It felt like what I was doing was something worthwhile. It felt very good to give back. The first day I went to Rumah hope, I cleaned the dining tables so the children can have their lunch when they came back from their sports activity. As the children were not there, we tried to help out the staff in any way we can .We were asked to help in the office. Rumah Hope was going to have an annual meeting with all of their benefactors and directors. Me and Kalai drafted the invitation letters and the typed out and printed the addresses to be put on Invitation letters.

After we returned from lunch, the children came back. We helped them out with their studies a little bit. I taught Mathematics to John. More like practicing, as he was already very good at it. He kept asking me to give larger numbers for him to add and subtract. Helping him teach made me realize how much I have missed out on not having a little kid brother. After we had done our fair share of mathematics for the day, we mingled with the kids a little more and left for the day/

The next day we were there early too, and the kids were at school. So we were tasked to helped out the staff prepare food for them. We cleaned and prepared squids, which was not the most savory of jobs. But it made me appreciate the work the staff do to help the children. I can at least say I can prepare squids on my own now. After helping in the kitchen, there was not much to do but wait till the children came back. When the children returned we made rubber bracelets with them, which was very hard work for me but they seem to have mastered the art of it and were adept at making the links. The children would veer off from making bracelets and have mock fights among themselves. They provided the punching sounds. We wanted to hang out with them more but our time was up and we had to go back to UM.

This social engagement was very rewarding. I have done volunteering work before but in all of them I was not very involved and just raised money for the charity. I hope to change that, this Ramadan I plan to be there feeding the children instead of just raising money for it.

Guang Wei's Reflections

        Social engagement, a course prepared with intention for undergraduates to learn about the society out there and contribute whatever in your capability. Through this 32 hours activity in Rumah Hope (an orphanage where we do our engagement), not only the children there gain fun and company, we as the engager ourselves also learned something from the process.

        Gratefulness is one of the values I learned from engaging the society there. We are always wasting time comparing ourselves with those wealthier or better than us, never realizing that we actually have been the luckiest one all these while. Whenever I think of the children there, I feel grateful to still be able to listen to my parent's mumbling and I definitely will start appreciate every moment I have now with my beloved family.

        Optimism is another values one can easily found on the children at Rumah Hope. Not all of them have the basic things like beautiful clothes and modern smartphones as we do, yet none of them show us a look of despair or sadness. They are glad to have us as company even just for a week. They are happy when given a new toy as gift. All these tiny actions in our eyes are already good enough to make their day. So why are we still complaining that our clothes are not branded and our phones are not the latest?

        Lastly, through this meaningful activity, I am lucky to meet a group of teammates who can cooperate well and tolerate with each other even though we are from different races and nationality. The jobs given are lots, preparing food for thirty children and having games with them are never easy, but when all of our teammates do it together and help out each other, we manage to complete the task in time.

        As conclusion for my personal reflection, I thought we are going to contribute something to the society at the beginning of the course. During the process of it and also at the end, only I realized it is actually for us to grab and learn from the society.

Ng Weng Lun's Reflections

                It was a tiring yet memorable trip to Rumah Hope for our social engagement activity. I can fully felt the excitement and happiness of the children when we were visiting them and playing together with them. Most of the children came from a broken family or neglected and lack of attention and love from the family, therefore they were not like normal kids. Some of them will get sad or angry easily, we must gave a lot of patience and empathy and we were playing around and teaching them study. Besides the children, most of the caregiver or aunty had their own stories as well. One of the aunty came here to relieve the pain of losing her son to cancer by taking care the children with love. As a conclusion, I had learnt that we must  be aware of what happening around us and give them a hand whenever possible. The thing you did not experienced or happened around you did not meant that it did not exist.