Howdy! A nifty day it was today! Everyone got up early in the morning and got ready as we headed to Sutramas Apartment located in Puchong for our 4th round of community service project. Our agenda at Sutramas Apartment were to provide helping hands for the opening of new Ajar-Ajar tuition centre and also to take part as Ajar-Ajar tuition teachers. We arrived at our destination at around 9 am after a 25 minutes journey. Ms. Hooi Khim came to us and greeted us with a big smile on her face. She briefed us the rough schedule for the whole day and introduced us to several new faces of volunteers from Ajar-Ajar Puchong. Tasks were quickly distributed before the imminent arrival of a special guest who was coming to pay a visit.
At around 9:30 am, our special guest arrived. He was the State Assemblyman for Kinrara, Puchong , Yang Berhormat Ng Sze Han. As a warmhearted leader of the area, he came to visit us and endorsed our project at Sutramas Apartment. YB Ng had a short discussion with the Resident Association of the apartment regarding this activity and also the Ajar-Ajar program which would be held later in the night time. Soon after their discussion, YB Ng was happy to spare some 30 minutes from his tight schedule to meet everyone of us and gave us a short but meaningful speech which was much related to volunteerism. He expressed his gratitude and satisfaction to us for helping the needy ones. We were pleased to receive such a message from a warmhearted leader like him and felt grateful for his endorsement.
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| YB Ng Sze Han's Facebook page |
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| Group photo with YB Ng Sze Han |
Soon after YB Ng left, we started our works with enthusiasm. We were assigned to paint the entire hall to produce a new fresh look to the place. Before painting works began, we wrapped up the power points, air-conditioners and the parts we wanted to avoid painting with newspapers and duct tapes. We also got some protection against the paint as we armed ourselves with newspapers. Therefore, we started our mission to transform the hall to a much pleasant look. We kept on applying several layers of paint onto the walls in order to cover up the stains that appeared on the walls. We halted the works during lunchtime and continue again for several more continuous hours to complete the job. Fortunately, some help arrived as volunteers from secondary school joined us in our mission to transform the tuition area for Ajar-Ajar program.
After long tiring hours of painting, we finally finished our painting works which covered the painting of the walls in the hall, toilet, doors and steel railings. Even with the protection we had using the newspapers, we still couldn't avoid from getting a few sprays from the paint that catapulted from the rolling brushes. Some of us got stained by paint on our favourite pants (quite a huge sacrifice). Lesson learnt, never put on your favourite pants for painting works. We took some rest and waited for the paint to settle by enjoying tea time.
Next, we cleaned up the furniture and books that had been moved out of the hall earlier before the paint job. The furniture and books were cleaned up before we moved them back into the hall, some of the unwanted things were removed and recycled to clear up the mess. As it was already late evening, the paint had already dried, hence we began to move the furniture and things to set up the hall to become a new tuition centre for Ajar-Ajar Puchong. Afterwards, we were off for showers and got ourselves ready for one last task for our project at Sutramas Apartment.
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| Armour up!! |
Well the above pretty much sums up our day time at Sutramas Apartment. After our dinner, our quest continues as we enrolled ourselves in the Ajar-Ajar activity at 8:30 pm as children swarm into the tuition area waiting to start their class. Most of the children are primary school children with wide variety of character among them. It was a challenge for some of us as this was the first time to be a volunteer teacher. Each one of us would have to deal with children of different characters therefore the challenge was not the same for everyone. The good news was, we had done a pretty good job as a teacher! Chuan Pey had to teach a hyperactive 9 years old which was talking non-stop, meanwhile Li Hao was assigned to teach a child which was introverted type who glanced at him only twice throughout the one and a half hour session. Everyone had different experience and feeling towards Ajar-Ajar. No matter what, it was a valuable one for sure!
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| Tutors and students |
When the teaching session had come to an end, we are separated into groups to share our experience and thoughts with the W-CARP volunteers. The session was rather short but it was very meaningful as this was a brand new insight for most of the group members. Shortly after the session wraped up our day, we left the Sutramas Apartment and back to our hostel and house respectively. Rest well and ready for the Final Round tomorrow!
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