Our visit

Hello, our group (Khairun, Joan, Pojoo, Nicole Yap and Monasha) would like to share with all of you our group wonderful experience visiting Precious Children Home on last Friday dated 24.8.07.

On that day, we met at the college then we all went to Precious Children Home in one car. Upon our arrival, we saw the children sitting down in the hall with Evelyn sharing their experiences after their camp at Port Dickson. We made a round circle at the house compound and began to introduce ourselves. We played a game that encourages each one of us to come out with a nick name that means something to them before our initial name. “Kreatif Khairun, Miss Malaysia Monasha, Jom Joan, Pinky Pojoo and Naughty Nicole” given as examples is a game to get to know the children better and to understand their world. Having themselves named Dragon Daniel, Punk Paul, Swordman Sean and so on allowed us to understand their world and their likes and dislikes. Everyone was enjoying and laughing at their own comfort of time, sorting out the perfect name that would be easier to pronounce and remember.

After playing the Name Game, we gave out some food such as snacks, chocolates and sweets to the children. The children were very delighted to receive snacks from us. While sharing food and snacks, we were all playing, chatting and teasing each other with our names. Other than that, we also brought some used shoes and sandals for the children. It was very much like a wake up call for each one of us in the group to see the expression on their faces when they received those shoes. They wore it around, running and showing it to each other proudly when they got a pair of ‘new shoes’. It made us realize on how we tend to take all these little things for granted and throwing away all our ‘unwanted’ goods away. It made us remember the saying that goes something like “one person’s extra is a thousand’s necessity”.

As the children were enjoying munching all kinds of food in their mouth, we started to divide the children into 5 teams which consist of 3 - 4 group members. Each group was spearheaded by us. All the children were very active and nice to handle. Each group was given a thick cardboard, markers, color pencils, ribbons, and fancy punchers and so on. They were asked to unleashed their creativity and design our names on a thick cardboard. It was very interesting to see a big bunch of playful children, putting all their attention and focusing on making a name card for the 5 of us.

Along the way, came James the 4 years old boy who loves to hang out with Khairun and her group as he insisted on her to accompany him anywhere he goes. Khairun vividly remember him saying ‘Che Che come with me lah, che che come and color with me’.

At first, Joan thought we would be using up probably only 15 minutes for the children to make the name cards, thinking that they are only children and probably won’t be long before they get bored and stop participating in designing the name cards. However, Joan was surprised with her team effort that ended up being one of the last team to finish the name card. From sketching, to planning, to delegating jobs, to coloring, to even the extend of collage… Joan’s team definitely exceeded her expectations.

We were all very happy with our group as they made us very wonderful name cards. It wasn’t just us and them. It was us in their creation… We were all very happy and proud with all these wonderful creation done by these talented children. At the end of the day, as they have completed designing Khairun name on the cardboard, they parade her name to the others in the group and shouted ‘Kayrun, Kayrun, Kayrun’. Joan’s group was participating very well and it was very touching to see how the older ones work together with the younger ones to make her name card work. Every group wanted their leader to have the nicest name tags. We all sensed that we are bonded along the process of working together. That was the spirit that we wanted in each and every group.

At about 3.40 p.m., we all packed our things and clean up the place with all the children. We were so close to each other by the end of the day until the children kept asking us to come back next week or the next day and to plan more activities to play with them. From this trip, we’ve learnt a lot from these children and we have definitely gotten closer to one another. We all are missing them already…