The starting point of all achievement is desire

We've reached the end of the semester, which also marks the end of this Social Engagement course.

I've attended all the activities, sacrificing my Friday and sometimes, weekends for this course. Social engagement course is like another volunteer programme for me, as I've experienced volunteering during secondary school time, except that during secondary school, I helped the elders and now, it is the kids' turn.

Thank you secretary for finding Yayasan Chow Kit and PAKK as our "basement" for this course. The children over there are mostly Malay, some of them are even children of foreign workers. Being a Chinese, I've face some difficulties communicating with them as my BM language skills are not that good. But once, I'm surprised that they knew some simple Chinese words such as number one to ten, etc. And many times, they approaches me and my Chinese friends to seek for the pronounciation for a certain words. I'm so happy that they are willing to learn languages other than their mother tongue language. In Malaysia, we should all do the same.

I've understood that Kuala Lumpur is a busy city, with full of foreign workers, some even illegal, thus they might bring some negativities and spread them around. Children that are still not mature enough with less critical thinking skills should not be exposed to them. Yayasan Chow Kit had built a platform for them, to protect them from all the negativities, and to teach them a lot of soft skills which could not be learn in the classroom. This is a thing that I'm impressed with.

Working with the team, with all coursemates had been a blessing for me. We've no longer strangers since then because of that we stick with our race group during class and meals. I've known a good side of them and I know that we could have a strong bonding between coursemates throughout our university life. I've understand that teamwork is very important to make things work.

I never really thought of community service as a movement. But it is.

Thank you.

Chan Xin Jo
Bureau of Publicity and Public Relations