By Fatimah Fawziyah
Looking cheerful and innocent, the faces of the Rohingya kids truly touched the heart of the 16 committee members who came to Sekolah Pelangi Kasih, Selayang. They joyfully followed the committee members performing the jump and dance, Â and putting aside for a while the hardship they have been through.
The Secretariat of Political Science Student Association (POSSA) of IIUM (POSSA) had prepared several modules for Rohingya kids: aerobic workout, ice-breaking, candy in the flour, chicken dance and design the shirt from newspaper.
œI feel very happy while seeing their faces full of happiness. What I enjoyed the most was that they were welcoming the volunteers like us to do this charity work. This is the first time for POSSA to organise this œHelping Hands programme and the outcome was really unexpected. The children, all of them gave positive response and cooperated nicely,” said Mohd Taufiq Mohd Arifin, 22.
He said that the experience in joining this programme was valuable and irreplaceable. It also helped to strengthen the love among Muslims. Although there were some challenges faced throughout the programme, they could still make it to the end. One of the challenges was the language barrier as there were only two to three kids who understand Malay language. Most of the time the committee members had to use non-verbal language, but they were very grateful because the kids were really understandable and  they learned fast.
œThe kids were easy to handle and we got no problem at all in controlling them. They dont feel afraid to talk with strangers because most of them were born in Malaysia, so they dont have problem to mingle with us, said Programme Manager of Helping Hand Programme, Mohd Taufiq Arifin.
It was a happy moment for the committee members in charged to see the kids actively participated in every module. The 35 participants of Rohingya kids are in the age of 5 to 12. During the module of designing the shirt from newspaper, the kids showed their creative thinking skills when they tried to make their own shirts even though they are still young. The committee did not have to show much, therefore, it made things easier for them to go through each module successfully.
At first, Mohd Taufiq thought that it would be difficult for them to handle the children because they are too young, talkative and might not listen to the 16 committee members. Moreover, they are not familiar yet with the place and new people. Nonetheless, after being there, they received a warm welcome, felt a sense of belonging and became close to them. The kids also started to feel calm and easy to approach.
There were also some fun and educational activities such as designing hats from manila card with different colour for each group. This was to differentiate between one and another group. Throughout the activity, every participant was given a piece of manila card, a pair of scissors, and sole tape to make their own hat. Their faces were glowing with happiness all the time.
The Rohingya kids were given biryani rice for lunch. This is because the kids still could not adapt with Malaysian food for the time being.
Therefore, to make this programme successful, Nur Ainie Haziqah Shafii from the permanent NGO, My Welfare, helped in making this œHelping Hands programme into reality.
œBasically, this œHelping Hands programme was held to mark the closing ceremony of PosXcitement Week. This PosXcitement that we were doing was for fundraising and the money we got will be given specially for Rohingya kids. Yes, our target is Rohingya kids. This event actually had been suggested by our president of POSSA, Muzakkir Muhammad Diah.
In addition, the objective of organising this programme was to give out some aids to the underprivileged community, to expose the POSSA members on how volunteerism works in the field, and to build strong relations among us, he added.
The programme that started from 9:30 a.m. and finished at 12:30 a.m. went very smoothly. Besides doing the charity work, they also got a chance to apply some education modules. Although they could not finish all of the modules because of limited time, but still, it was a very meaningful experience for each one of them.***