By Muhammad Asri Ismail
GOMBAK, 17 April 2015:  A total of 36 students from UMission Club, IIUM, went to Satun Province, Thailand  from 2 until 5 April recently for a humanitarian mission called ˜Global Ummatic Outreach to Thailand 2.0.
Satun Province consists of several villages with Muslim community, located at the shore of the Andaman Sea that borders Perlis. The villagers there rely on marine-based industry and there are still many of them who are unfortunate and need help.
Thus, UMission Club took the initiative to conduct this mission for the second time following a successful one held last year at the same place.
With the theme, œRestoring Faith in Humanity, this programme was aimed to engage with the less fortunate Muslim communities, at the same time, to inculcate the spirit of volunteerism among the students.
Besides IIUM students, there were about 25 others from the alumni of Sekolah Menengah Sultan Abdul Halim (SMSAH) and the IIUM Health and Wellness Centre. This programme was led by Dr Dinon bin Mohd, the chief medical officer of IIUM Health and Wellness Centre.
The participants departed from IIUM on Thursday night (2 April) and reached Kuala Perlis jetty at around 7.00 a.m the next day. To reach the village, volunteers were required to ride a long-tail boat for one hour with a first stop at Tammalang Port, Satun for immigration check before reaching Puju Island.
The operation centre for this humanitarian mission was at Kg. Puyu Mosque. Among the community engagement activities held were aqiqah, mass circumcision, food parcel donation, gotong royong and ukhuwwah games with teenagers at the village.
The mass circumcision received a huge response from the villagers as 39 children from 5-13 years old were circumcised. The doctors responsible for the circumcision were Dr Dinon, Dr Wahidah, and Hj Jamil. Each child received a ˜kain sarung and some cash.
While the kids waited for their turn to be circumcised, we played some modules with the kids such as watching videos, hygiene lessons and also colouring.
After the circumcision were completed, all the villagers who came along to celebrate the kids were served with the dishes prepared by the volunteers with the help of the villagers. For the aqiqah, animals (a cow and a goat) were slaughtered to serve the local communities.
On top of that, to further strengthen our bonds with the villagers, we also played games with them such as volleyball and traditional games.
For the food parcel donation, we managed to receive 140 boxes from kind-hearted donors. One box of the food parcel was worth RM30 and it contained flour, sugar, cooking oil, biscuits and also tea. These food parcels were then distributed to the needy villagers not only in Kg Puyu, but also at a nearby village in Pulau Panjang.
Besides food parcels, we also donated iqra, muqaddam, yaasin, al Quran, stationaries, sejadah, telekung, kain batik and kain pelikat, weighing almost 200 kg in total.
According to one of the recipients of the donation, Munirah, 31, she was very happy to receive such donations from our team as this had helped reduced her family burden.
Since their village can only be accessed by boat, they hardly received guests and our presence in the village really made them happy, as they got to mix with other communities from another country.
In a nutshell, this programme was held successfully as we received cooperation from all volunteers and the villagers.
The Programme Manager, Mohd Faiz Syahiran Ramly said that he was really grateful to have such high spirited and committed members helping the less fortunate and making this programme a success.
“I would like to thank all the donors for their contributions and I hope this mission will not stop here as this is just the beginning for all of us. Let’s hope that this spirit of volunteerism will spread to as many people as possible, so we can revive the ummah,” he said.
Furthermore, this programme also drew a lot of positive feedbacks from the committees and participants.
One of the volunteers, Wan Nurul Nadiah, 21, said: œI felt very lucky to be selected to join this programme as I gained a lot of new input and experience. I felt very happy as I got to contribute something for the betterment of the ummah and I hope this programme will not stop here.***
