Projek Yusoff

For the past semester, I have been involved in a project called Projek Yusoff organized my Kolej Kediaman Tuanku Bahiyah, Universiti Malaya . Nope not kurma company *get it?*. 

 

So what is Projek Yusoff you may ask? 

It is a project run by students of  Kolej Tuanku Bahiyah aims to provide free tuition for underprivileged kids around the area. So for this, they teamed up with a local NGO, iSina which provides training and modules that were used during the lesson. 

Knowing me with my personal goal of equal education for all and stuff, I was genuinely interested to the project when a classmate of mine approach some of us TESLians for it. So yeah, went to the interview, got it and went for my first class. 

Expectation? 

Well, to be honest I thought it was an easy job. You go to the class two times a week, get back and  mark some books, fill in the feedback forms and that's it. Nope, that's not everything that happened. I had not expect kids to be running an hour late to class, kids that run around pulling each other's clothes, kids that knows more about drugs that you do and kids that came to class with faint smell of cigarettes on them. It was far from my expectation. I thought, I had it easy coming from TESL background and having few experience of similar facilitating experience previously. In this class, you deal with a whole different kind of kids. 

I won't say they're bad but they are just different to what I had faced before.Teaching the kids had certainly, taught me to be patient and to be more attentive. These kids came from various background, and sometimes all they need is a little bit of attention. 

Hence, the attitude. 

Here's a story of A. 

I met A during my first duty for the project. We were alternate among few other volunteers so when I went there it was already few weeks after the project starts. During the volunteers briefing, I was generally told that the group that I was going to handle will be the special one. God knows what, I braced myself for that. It was during the class that I found out that A could barely read despite being in his early preteen age. I was utterly shocked. Since then, whenever I am in charge of his group I will sit next to him through out the two hour class and practice his reading and spelling. Some other volunteers told me that he had stopped going to school and are now working odd jobs around the area. I have also heard that was involved with some bad gangs around the area. Wallahualam, I did not know if any of it are true, but I do wish none of it were true. 

But that's how A has become part of my personal mission ; to have him read a full book on his own by the end of the program.What amazed me is that , despite of his situation he had never showed any attitude or rejecting our effort. Instead, he receive it and appreciate our effort. I remember during one of the class, he was late. He knocked the door 20 minutes before the class ends. I asked him where he went, and he said he had overslept. And then, he asked if he could come in and read a book. I said yes and I sat with him reading until everyone is packed up and ready to leave. 

Despite of all the rumors about him, he was one of the good ones. He never raised his voice, didn't even flinched when someone tugged his clothes and never get mad when other students came and teased him about not knowing how to read. On the last day of class, he was awarded for 'Usaha' and got a watch for it.You could see from his smiles of how proud he was with himself , and I believed he had never been awarded as such. Before we left, I sat with him and asked him what he is going to do when there's no more night class with Projek Yusoff. 

He said, he will continue reading books. 

So that was about A, a young boy who had impacted not just me but most of the other volunteers. His charm, his dedication , his respect to teachers earned him a respect from me. 

One thing for sure, despite coming from various backgrounds and little experience in teaching the volunteers showed great dedication and to me, its amazing to see that. Yes, I may be from an education background, but  I have learned more from such projects that I do in lectures. 

I have to admit, as I am writing this down I am missing the kids. The chaos before the class starts, during the class and even after class ends. The random rants and gossips that we had while doing the modules. The urge to scream when they could not sit still in lines. The headache you got when your students won't stop throwing erasers to the next table.

I missed the kids, the whole lots of it. 

Until then, I'll keep on praying for the awesome bunch.