Project Karuiku arrival to Malaysia and pre-workshop meeting:
"I'm tired", "I only slept for an hour", "why is the trip so long?" Those are some of the words that were spoken by our team members during our trip to Malaysia. The Project Karuiku members, including myself, knew that our journey was going to be a long one, but we also understood that this workshop was valuable, and we always remembered how much it meant to us. Our perseverance and support towards one another is what got us to our final destination at the end of the day.
The first day after our arrival was our pre-workshop meeting with a member of the YES Malaysia , an NGO that shares the same values and goals as Project Karuiku. We discussed the expectations that we had for each other, the goals that we aimed to achieve through the workshop, and any final materials that we needed for the workshop itself. This process in itself was very beneficial, as it gave us the chance to understand the YES Malaysia organization, and also bond with Alvan, one of the main organizers. We also understood that we are all needed for the workshop, and so came to the realization that this workshop would not work without our unity and collaboration.
We, members of Karuiku, have always been used to leading our workshop independently, and so exploring this new dynamic of a 50/50 partnership was a challenge for us, and we had to adapt and be flexible to this situation. Now that we have explored this 50/50 dynamic, Project Karuiku will want to have more collaborations in the future, because having more members involved adds to the creativity of the team as a whole .
People have always criticized Karuiku, saying that the leadership workshops that we run have no meaning, and that they are just fun for the participants, but we as a group fail to agree with those people. We empower students and so even if our leadership values do not pass on to some of the participants, our methods of raising their confidence and self-esteem is in itself empowerment, and as long as the participants take something from our workshops, we as a group are happy with our work.