Sukan Rakyat, one of the activities at the Bakti Siswa

Report and Pix by Edlyn J.Lim

BANDAR TUN ABDUL RAZAK, PAHANG, 21 Dec 2015  – Students of The National University of Malaysia contributed their time and skills to help an Orang Asli community here recently.

The students of the Faculty of Education (FP) and Centre for Development and Alumni Relations (PPMPA) organised a programme, dubbed Bakti Siswa, which was held on 3^rd of December at Kampung Bukit Serok, Pahang.

With the theme dubbed Career Is The Catalyst Of The Future, the organisers of the event aimed at getting students taking part in this programme to improve  interpersonal skills like communications, management, leadership and cooperation, besides fostering unity amongst students.

Furthermore, they said, this event was also one of many ways in strengthening the bonds between the  students.

Activities of this programme ranged from helping the orang asli to build a mosque from tent covers , to setting up water pumps that channelled clean water from nearby rivers to their homes.

The students also ensured the cleanliness of the inhabitants’ homes by performing multiple sessions of cleaning activities.

One of the participants, Yazmalina Yaacob, 21, expressed her feelings about the programme.

“Basically when I went there, I felt out of place because of its infrastructure and its surrounding. Here in Bangi, we are living in an urban place where you could easily go to hospital nearby while in Kampung Bukit Serok, there’s only one health clinic which may or may not have all the equipments needed for treatment.

“However, we do this programme to have fun with the people especially the kids and young adults. We did a few activities that we find would get their attention such as senamrobik, sukan rakyat, ice-breaking and sembang santai. Overall, we enjoyed ourselves and I’m sure they did too, due to the good feedback from their headman.

“This is a good exposure for them in knowing the importance of education and also there is a big world out there that they can explore,” said Yazmalina, who also happened to be the secretary of this programme.

This programme was attended by 20 staffers and 20 participants with the ambition of creating students with high competency and high ingenuity.

Participant and staff at the end of the programme

Some of the Orang Asli children at Kampung Bukit Serok