Thirty-five ‘fairies’ from Sekolah Sri Bestari cooked nasi lemak for almost 100 homeless people at the Community Services Centre recently. They were led by schoolmates, Lim Seng Rong, Stephanie Yeow and Goh Yuen Zhuang, who initiated this project as part of the Youth Leadership Programme organised by Sunway University College (Sunway).
The self-named ‘Soup Kitchen Fairies’ started out collecting dry food items from their schoolmates. However, response was poor due to the inconvenience of bringing the bulky food packages. Young as they were, Seng Rong, Stephanie and Yuen Zhuang were undeterred. Time was against them, but they devised a new solution to conduct a monetary donation drive instead.
“Contingency plans are very important because problems can easily be encountered,” they reported to the organisers, wise beyond their years.
To rally support for their project, Seng Rong, Stephanie and Yuen Zhuang gave speeches during morning assemblies about their campaign. After three weeks and with RM2335 in their hands, the ‘fairies’ bought various fresh ingredients to cook a complete meal. They felt that it was a blessing in disguise, as they were providing a more wholesome meal now instead of the initial plan of canned and dry-packed food which was less nutritious. Surpluses were used to procure gifts and toiletries to be donated to the Centre.
For their efforts, Seng Rong, Stephanie and Yuen Zhuang received scholarships worth RM8,000 each to any pre-university, diploma or American Degree Transfer Programmes at Sunway University College, RM1,500 in prize money and a trophy for the school as first place winners in the challenge. They intend to use the prize money to upgrade their school facilities.
When asked what they would have done differently in retrospect, Seng Rong replied, “We would have widened our scope to include students from the lower forms. It is a good experience for them in helping the needy and they can continue our project for the coming years after we have left the school.”
The Youth Leadership Programme organised by Sunway is a competitive award programme that aims to nurture and develop future leaders of our nation. The Form 4 and 5 school students, in teams of three, had to submit proposals on a chosen community project. Sunway University College, a Trust Fund institution, has always placed Corporate Social Responsibility high on its priority. Accordingly, the Youth Leadership Programme which spanned from February to June this year specified that all proposals have to focus on making meaningful contributions to the society.
The participants had to attend leadership and project management workshops at Sunway and a special community exposure session where the organisers brought them to visit residents of Petros Residential, Rumah Kepercayaan, and Double Blessings Disabled Independent Living Association. Finally, the teams channeled their newfound knowledge into the execution of their proposals on specific dates with seed money of RM250 provided by Sunway.
The implementation stage was judged by the participants’ organisational and decision-making skills, teamwork, communication within and outside the team, creativity in problem solving, conflict management, and public relations skills. The judges moderated their viewpoints with 360 degree feedback from the teams’ peers, principals, counsellors, teachers, parents and external people whom they interacted with when running the project.
“I am surprised to see that some of them can do so much, even surpassing what an ordinary adult would be committed to do,” commented Dr Liew Yoke Ying, Chief Judge and Head of American Degree Transfer Programme at Sunway “They are prospective leaders and they discovered their own potential while executing the project. Many of them want to come back next year as coaches to their juniors and some schools are committed to go for the champion position in the next competition.”
97 proposals were received from 32 schools and 24 teams were short listed to execute their projects. Besides the Soup Kitchen Fairies Campaign, other notable first and second runners-up winning projects were in the aid of the flood victims of Kampung Maju Jaya in Johor Baru and the Indian community helping Pure Life in Skudai, respectively.
