Badminton

Our VIA project involved our team teaching seniors about the benefits of zumba and yoga and how to do senior-friendly zumba and yoga exercises at home.

When planning our VIA, we had a tough time looking for a suitable organisation to work with. Our team had chosen to work with the elderly for our VIA project. However, given the Covid-19 situation, we thought that it would be near impossible to conduct the VIA project with our desired target group as we thought that VIA was something that had to be conducted face-to-face.

However, when we reached out to Fei Yue Community Services, they suggested that we should take part in their Intergenerational Learning Programme (ILP), and they told us we could still reach out to the elderly by conducting our VIA project via Zoom. At first, we were skeptical about the idea presented to us, because we had never heard of VIA projects being conducted online. We had many questions such as “How would we be able to engage the elderly since we would not be there with them in real life to teach them the exercises?” or “What should we do if the elderly face technical difficulties?”. The staff at the organisation then explained to us that there were other schools that have completed successful VIA projects via online means, and that there was not much to worry about. They also informed us that the elderly knew how to use the basic functions of Zoom, which made us feel a bit more relieved, as one of our biggest worries had been solved.

Initially, we had proposed to teach the elderly some simple crafts as we had perceived the elderly to be physically weaker - wheelchair bound and not very active. To our surprise, the organisation told us that the seniors that we would be interacting with are physically active. With this new information, we decided to change our selected course topic to teaching the elderly some senior-friendly zumba and yoga exercises. We understood that since Covid-19 hit, many elderly were not able to leave their homes, and thus were not able to visit their neighbourhood fitness corners to exercise. Thus, we wanted to teach them some simple exercises that they could do at home so that they can continue to keep fit in the comfort of their own homes.

Before our via session, we had to undergo a soft skills training conducted by the organisation. During the training, we learnt how to engage with the elderly, and how to ensure that our method of teaching was senior-friendly. I think this really helped us make sure that our VIA session was easy for the seniors to take part in, and made us more open-minded in terms of our view towards the elderly. This is because in the midst of preparing our powerpoint slides, we had only focused on ourselves and whether we liked the slides, instead of focusing on whether the seniors would be able to find the slides simple and understandable. In preparation for our Zoom VIA session, each group had to prepare icebreaker games and a list of zumba and yoga exercises.

We had a successful dry run - although it was a short one, we were able to use roleplay, allowing us to be more prepared to engage with the elderly on the day itself. On our actual VIA day, the whole team was feeling rather anxious. No matter how much we had prepared, we were scared of how the VIA would turn out, and if there would be any unforeseen obstacles for us to overcome. When the elderly first entered, they were mostly unresponsive despite us trying to engage them by asking them questions, which led to us feeling quite dejected. However, we did not give up, and introduced ourselves to the elderly. We made conversations within the team, then tried to extend the conversation to include the elderly, and this worked! During the VIA session, we shared about the benefits of zumba and yoga with the elderly, and each student led the elderly to do some exercises. The rest of the VIA session went smoothly and as planned, and we had a fun time. At the end of the VIA session, the elderly had gotten more comfortable around us, and were very grateful towards us for taking our time to teach them how to do these simple exercises. We had also shared our slides with them so that they can refer to it if they want to do these exercises in the future.

We had a successful dry run - although it was a short one, we were able to use roleplay, allowing us to be more prepared to engage with the elderly on the day itself. On our actual VIA day, the whole team was feeling rather anxious. No matter how much we had prepared, we were scared of how the VIA would turn out, and if there would be any unforeseen obstacles for us to overcome. When the elderly first entered, they were mostly unresponsive despite us trying to engage them by asking them questions, which led to us feeling quite dejected. However, we did not give up, and introduced ourselves to the elderly. We made conversations within the team, then tried to extend the conversation to include the elderly, and this worked! During the VIA session, we shared about the benefits of zumba and yoga with the elderly, and each student led the elderly to do some exercises. The rest of the VIA session went smoothly and as planned, and we had a fun time. At the end of the VIA session, the elderly had gotten more comfortable around us, and were very grateful towards us for taking our time to teach them how to do these simple exercises. We had also shared our slides with them so that they can refer to it if they want to do these exercises in the future.

Overall, I feel that this VIA project was a really fruitful experience for us, and it was a great success. We were able to teach the seniors in our community something beneficial that will help them keep fit and active without needing to leave their homes. I was also able to see my teammates step out of their comfort zones to interact with the elderly.

CCA VIA Ambassador

OLIVIA JOYCE LING YING EN (20-02)