By Shafiqah Hazirah
GOMBAK, 30 July 2015: Forty students from JASA Club, IIUM, visited Kampung Bukit Cermin, Kuala Kangsar, Perak for two days from 10 July for a community service mission called ‘ Road to Ramadhan Kareem’ aimed for the Orang Asli.
The first visit to the village was during Ramadhan and is focused towards helping the community improve their basic knowledge of Islam as well as to strengthen the relationship between the volunteers and villagers.
With the theme, “Colourful Ramadhan”, featuring variety of activities aimed to show the beauty of Islam and encourage them to practice Islam in their daily life. The volunteers departed from IIUM on Friday and to reach the village volunteers were required to ride four wheel drives sponsored by Majlis Agama Islam Perak.
Besides IIUM students, there were two representatives from Muslim Aid Malaysia and two from UNESCO IIUM participated in the programme. IIUM has collaborated with Muslim Aid on a similar programme since last year.
Among the community engagement activities held were tafsir Al-Fatihah, Ketuk-Ketuk Ramadhan, Ziarah, transculture session and Iftar Jamaie. The volunteers taught al-Fatihah by using video clips to it easier to understand. Besides that, they also taught how to make Ondeh-Ondeh and Popia Nestum as a preparation for Aidilfitri celebration during Ketuk-Ketuk Ramadhan slot.
Apart from that, a session called “Amek” teaches volunteers how to to make traditional food like, Nyiru and Tampi Beras. To further bond with the villagers, they played games like running using coconut shell and bring ball using spoon.
For the food parcel donation, they were handed 50 jars from Heliz Cookies, rice, oil and flour. Besides food parcel, there were also donated stationaries like, sejadah, telekung, kain pelikat and hygiene kit consisted of toothbrush, soap and toothpaste.
According to one of the recipients of the donation, Jamilah, 35, she was very happy to receive such donations from our team as this had helped reduced her family expenses.
Programme Manager, Syarifuddin Sahlan said that he was grateful to have a highly spirited and committed team members willing to help the less fortunate and making this programme a successful one.
“I would like to thank all 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.
Tok Batin Omar, head of the village said, “I hope this programme will continue and JASA club will come again to teach us and conduct more activities about Islam. This programme gets good support from the villagers and it made them feel to know about Islam more deeply.”