Student Life

Salam readers. PERKIM (Islamic Welfare Organisation Malaysia) society had organized a trip to an orphanage at Ampangan, Negeri Sembilan today. Its not that far from our campus at Nilai. They are trying to find volunteers to join the program, and apparently they are short of brothers. So i volunteered myself because i got no plans to do on that sunday anyway. So why don't I do some charity work :D We gathered in front of the library at 8.30am and boarded the bus at around 8.50am.

The society expected that there will be 20 brothers and 20 sisters. But actually there were only 10 brothers and almost 30 (or more) sisters who participated in the program.. It seems like sisters have a softer heart than brothers to do this charity work... So that makes these 10 guys exceptional :D And there was also a coincidence but i still can't find any human reasoning behind this coincidence, the sisters were a mixture of Economics (ECONS), Human Science (HS), Bachelor of Arabic (BAR) and Bachelor of English (BEN) students but the 10 brothers are ALL from ECONS!! Go ECONS!! ECONS boys are more enthusiastic! Yeah! :D

huhu.. i don't like my new haircut :(

We arrived kinda earlier than expected at around 10.05am. The name of the orphanage is Pertubuhan Anak Yatim Darul Aminan (PAYDA). We hopped off the bus and we were greeted by a brother there. He was so nice and polite and invited us to have a seat. As we entered the place we saw the young orphans there. Some sitting and some standing looking at us. We can see in their eyes that they are actually shy. Some came up to us and shook our hands. There are currently a total of 33 orphans there, 17 boys and 16 girls.The youngest is 4 years old while the oldest is 16 years old (Form 4). The orphanage is just a small single-storey house. It is situated in a village-like area.

The orphans

The first tentative for the day is the ice-breaking session. Each of us is appointed to handle 1 child each. We, the facilitators (abang-abang fasi) have to introduce ourself briefly and then the children themselves will rise and come to us! When they came to us that means they have chosen us to be their abang fasi! It was awkward at first, for both us and the kids! But then we managed to sort it out. A boy named Azrul came to me and then all of us were given 1 hour to talk and getting to know the child better. So Azrul and I went to the dining area of the house and we talked about a lot of stuff!

We talked about school, uni, hobbies, ambitions and many other stuff. Azrul is a form 2 boy and his ambition is to be a an Astronaut! He told me that he's interested in going to outer space and exploring new planets. InsyaAllah, I pray for him that one day, his dream will come true :) I even asked him nicely, how did he became an orphan? He told me that his father passed away when he was in primary 3. He was at Johor visiting a relative when he received a phonecall saying that his father just had a heart-attack. He was trying his best to return back to his hometown as quickly as possible but it was too late. His father had already passed away.. He didn't even managed to see his father taking his last breath. He only managed to see his father while he is already in the coffin in the funeral. Innalillahi Wa Inna Ilaihi Raji'un..

Azrul! My new foster brother!

So 50 minutes has passed since we talked but it didn't even feel like it has been 10 minutes! The next program is just basically like a quiz. The sisters from PERKIM asked the children questions on ARABIC! Because most of the PERKIM sisters are from the program BAR. I love arabic so i helped Azrul in answering the questions. The kids will get sweets or chocolates when they answered the questions correctly.

Not long after that is lunch and zohor prayer time. We brought a lot of packed lunch from campus and we had lunch together with the orphans. After that, all the brothers; abang fasi and the children; walked together to the nearby mosque to perform zohor prayer.

When we returned to the house, another activity awaits us. Two of my ECONS friends conducted the activity. We basically have to say the tongue twister while our hands do the correct hand gestures. Its a really fun and interesting game! And then we had a couple more fun games like the traditional malay "Goreng Pisang! Goreng Pisang! Goreng Pisang Sekarang!" game. The brothers owned that game! The brothers are more spontaneous than the sisters! Then there is also the Spelling Bee game. Each of the children is given a specific word in English and they have to spell out the word correctly. Of course we facilitators are encouraged to help them out!

And then without realizing it, its already 4pm and we were already at the end of the whole program.. Each of us (facilitators) is given like a small square shaped gift to be given to our chosen kids. We are also encouraged to write a message on the gift before we give it to them. The message could be about giving advices, words of wisdom, studying tips. As long as it is a message honest from our hearts. At the closing ceremony, Nizam, the president of PERKIM who is also my Maths classmate handed over the token of appreciation to the "mother" of the children. She is called "mother" because she is the one who lives in the house and takes care of the children as if they are all her own real children. "Father" wasn't there at that time. And then there was the photography session.

All of the male facilitators and children

I had a great time going to this orphanage. I would've regret if i didn't go to this beautiful place filled with beautiful children. We should be thankful that most of us still have parents who are alive and well. These kids are still young and the have already lost one or both of their parents.. May Allah give them strength and guide them to become successful people in the future InsyaAllah.. Ameen.

And this adds one more to the list of interesting experiences that i had during my Student Life. Thanks for reading. Salam :)