Motivational campaign for primary students

The Department of Soft Skills Competency (DSSC) of Sungai Long Campus, together with a group of UTAR students, organised an event called “UTAR ‘We Care We Act’ Virtual Motivational Campaign” on 28 August 2021. The participants were comprised of primary school students from San Hao Xue Tang, Jenjarom, Selangor. The main objectives of this campaign were to promote the concept of “Wonderful World” among the students and to encourage the expression of creativity and inner thoughts so that it may serve as a stress-relieving medium for the students.

The virtual motivational campaign was led by DSSC staff Choon Wen Kie from UTAR Sungai Long Campus. She was assisted by a group of six UTAR students, namely Ang Lin, Ngu Jing Wen, Leong Zhui Shen, Georgina Ko Fang Ning, Lee Xin Ci and Lee Jia Jie.

The campaign began with a welcome speech presented by the emcee, Leong. It was followed by the briefing of ground rules and introduction of committee members. The introduction was made so that the students could familiarise with the facilitators. After the introduction, an ice-breaking session called “What Can You Observe?” was conducted by Leong. It was followed by three group activities titled “Draw Your Thoughts”, “Thousand Paper Cranes Folding Time” and “What is Peace?”. The group activities aimed to convey key messages pertaining to Sustainable Development Goal 16— Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (SDG 16).

The first group activity, “Draw Your Thoughts”, was facilitated by Lee. During this session, students were given step-by-step guidance on how to create and publish their drawings on an online website called Padlet. Next, they were instructed to draw their personal thoughts about “Wonderful World”. This activity served to encourage students to express their creativity, imagination and idea about their “Wonderful World” openly and freely. They were given 10 minutes to complete their drawings. Constant guidance was provided to those who faced problems in publishing their drawings online.

The second activity, namely “Thousand Paper Cranes Folding Time”, was handled by one of the student facilitators named Ngu. While waiting for the students to get prepared with a paper and a ruler, Ngu presented a brief story that described the underlying meaning of folding thousand paper cranes— which indicates the symbol of peace, love and hope in the face of adversity. After that, students were guided on the folding process step-by-step to ensure that they were able to keep up. The students enjoyed the process of learning how to fold a thousand paper crane throughout the session. Although the folding activity was slightly challenging for the primary school students, they were patient and determined to complete the entire folding task and successfully made their own thousand paper crane by themselves. The atmosphere was filled with satisfaction and happiness throughout the activity.

The third activity, “What is Peace?”, was led by another student facilitator Ang Lin. During this session, the school students were introduced to the concept “peace” along with visual aids to ensure the students grasped the concept well. Pictures related to peace, the symbol of peace and the significance of protection were also shown and discussed during the session. The students were asked to brainstorm of ways to protect themselves and their loved ones for the sake of peace, which helped to establish a two-way communication between the students and the facilitators.

In the following session, student facilitator Jia Jie gave a brief explanation about emotions. She particularly focused on a single emotion, namely anger and shared three techniques to calm oneself down. This session aimed to introduce students with the techniques to calm down. The techniques include counting down backwards from ten to one, taking five deep breaths and distracting oneself by moving away to do something different. To enhance students’ understanding, Jia Jie demonstrated the techniques and encouraged the students to participate in the demonstration.

The campaign ended with a sharing session where students were invited to share about their drawings. Aside from that, the facilitator also shared the screen of the Padlet website to showcase all the drawings published by the students.

At the end of the campaign, Venerable You Qing, the person-in-charge of San Hao Xue Tang students, shared a few words and thanked the organising committee for their hard work. The campaign officially came to an end after the closing speech and the group photography session.