Malaysia Day 1 Workshop
I must admit, the first workshop we held in Malaysia was a really challenging experience, but it was ultimately worthwhile as we, the Karuiku members, also learned many things along the way.
We arrived to the academy (school) in the morning. Looking at the building, I honestly felt saddened as I also knew that this was a normal everyday school for the Refugee children. This, at the same time, reminded myself and all Karuiku members about the purpose of our visit. We aimed to empower those children who had grown up in poverty and so our visit was really meaningful. We often hear about organizations and charities that share the same goal of empowering children, and so we knew that this was a global issue, which is why we took action and traveled to Malaysia.
We started the workshop off by playing some icebreakers with the kids. We had dedicated around 30 mins for those icebreakers, but it was honestly the most difficult 30 mins for myself as a Karuiku member. We had been told that we would work with 40 kids, and we actually had 90 kids in the room. We were told that we would have access to multiple rooms, we were actually given one. Those challenges that we faced required us to improvise on the spot, and it required a lot of flexibility. We reverted a lot from the original plan, and each activity leader started to introduce a different game to accommodate the kids. This demonstrates our commitment, alongside the challenges that we have undertaken in the process.
Things got better after the first hour or so, and it may have been because we also learned and knew how to deal with the kids. As the day progressed, we were often faced by other problems such as the heat in the room, as there was no AC, and the high energy of the kids. I also saw that we, the Karuiku members, naturally gathered around together during breaks to discuss the next activity, and to give feedback and suggestions to one another. I believe that the constant support and encouragement that we gave to each other is what got us through, as no project in this world would be able to operate optimally without the creative ideas and opinions of different people. We Karuiku members helped one another, and also learned a lot in this process. We used our strengths in improvising, and adapted it to the situation in front of us. I personally enjoyed this workshop a lot because it was not a traditional Karuiku workshop. We had to think outside the box when dealing with those kids, and the fact that we did not give up halfway through shows how meaningful this was to us.