"Wallpaper" of the Week

Cikgu Jalil is trying to give justification to the students

Female students also are not excluded

Doing some revision before the class starts with Ustaz Shahid

A smile from Akhi Ali

The second week of my life as a practicum student mostly was at the Muslim Aid office. The office has become my "wallpaper" of the week since everything of my work was mainly based on the working under air-con environment. My focus was on completing several proposals within the stipulated dates given by boss.

For the time being, the proposal on the Futsal Tournament between refugees, the Motivational Camp at Bukit Semanggol and the Student Exchange program are the priorities. Discussions on those proposals were made in order for us to update the progress of each of proposal. It sounds very simple at the beginning but when I go into the details, it were out of what I have expected beforehand. I had rather took more times to complete the details other than the introductory part and the objectives of the programs such as the expenditure, the modules, the tentative and the master plan. Thanks to the owner of adisocialwork.blogspot.com and donateforummah.com who did a very excellence job completing the proposals together.

On Thursday and Friday, as a weekly routine I went to the Madrasah Hashimiah to assist Cikgu Jalil, a teacher who teaches Bahasa Melayu for the Rohingyas there.

The Freeze and Frozen of Fraser's Hill

On the way to the Fraser's Hill,near the Kuala Kubu Bharu



Some of the facilities at the Silverpark Resort



Ta'aruf session while taking our lunch

A teamwork to start the fire


A Snapshot with the Trainers


Handling the Cerebral Parsy kids


Photography session among the volunteers

On 18 and 19 of April 2010, Abang Mat and his family accompanied by me and Adi were at the Fraser's Hill, Pahang Darul Makmur for a volunteerily work organized by the CBR Network Malaysia. CBR Network Malaysia and Muslim Aid together with 2 other organizations namely the Malaysia Relief Agency and Al-Islam Specialist Hospital had organized a program with the disabled peoples (cerebral palsy, dyslexia and down syndrom).

The program was held at the Silverpark Resort and this activity is actually a weekly activity organized by the CBR Network Malaysia. There are 12 disabled peoples who were selected to work at the resort for developing their skills and self potential of independence. All of the trainers were given the opportunity to work and stay at the resort.

On the second day, the medical teams from the two specialist hospitals together were handling a medical check up for the local people. Different reactions were given by the patients. It looks funny but it is actually a normal responses everywhere when we are facing the doctors. Everybody works accordingly and managed to comfort the patients from any 'medical elergic'.

Muslim Aid team was given the task to handle the cerebral palsy patients; how we should treat them in the right way. The session was conducted by Puan Fauziah. Many techniques were shown to us and the family members of the patients. It's really gives us a valuable knowledge that we might not be aware of before. Thanks a lot to Puan Fauziah.

We called it a day with some visitation around the Fraser's Hill after finishing our job at the resort. The panorama was really nice and we had a chance to buy some souvenirs for our collection of sweet memory at the Fraser's Hill.

Abu An-Nasr

The Awaited Friday

I was wondering what and how will be my life on Friday at Bangsar. I kept thinking about it all over the times even when I was doing some works in the office. One more thing was about where does the nearest mosque is located. I just hoped that I will be given the strength to perform the Jumaat prayer in a new environment without any problems. Alhamdulillah I managed to perform it accordingly.

The khutbah was delivered in Malay and at the same time I suddenly flashed back on some memory about the Jumaat prayer in IIUM that were mostly delivered either in English or Arabic, rarely in Malay. More than that, during the khutbah deliverance, I was little bit shock and very proud to see the utilization of technology in that mosque. There was an interactive presentation on the issues conveyed by the khatib at the right end of the mimbar. There should be more mosques which will implement the same technique. Suddenly many things came into my mind; the role of religious organizations and the community to reorganize the structure of our mosques to be more comfortable and conducive. This will also be my responsibility as I am not exempted from it. "Oh my Lord, please give me the spirit to accomplish my responsibilities as Your servant in this world"


Abu An-Nasr

4th Day (15/04/2010)

In the morning I went to the headquater of UNHCR with brother Muhammad (Abang Mat) and Muhardi (Adi), arrived there around 9.15 a.m. The meeting was at 10 a.m, so we went to the cafe to take some breakfast. The condition of the UNHCR office is really out of my imagination, with an old-style building as it's main office plus the sub-offices made from containers. Little bit funny for such a world class organization I thought.

At 10 a.m, Abang Mat started to explain about the report of the Futsal Tournament to sister Alia, a UNHCR's staff. Adi and I just being the observers for the whole session but Adi managed to harmonize the session with some ideas while I was just sitting there listening to their discussion. Nothing to say during that moment unless to give some gestural feedback on certain parts of the discussion. I was also wondering to see the programme report was done by sister Mimi by interviewing Abang Mat on the whole things related to be included in the report not vice-versa. Perhaps this is how the UNHCR works or this will help sister Mimi to deliver the report to the board of UNHCR. It was very useful for me to know on how certain things work in another way around. Later on we went back to MA's office.

After Zuhur prayer, we accompanied Abang Mat to meet Papa Rock (Ramli Sarip) nearby the office. We were lucky to have the chance that others might not have especially my classmates who are also doing their practicum all around Malaysia in various companies and agencies.

Next step, we went to the book shop to take the books ordered by Abang Mat 2 days before. Once we finished there, we then went to Hasyimiah and had the chance to be involved in the Bahasa Melayu class for the Rohingya. They are really friendly eventhough the age gap between us is obviously can be detected. That was not a problem for us. We managed to share the learning moment together with some jokes made by almost everbody.

We called the day at 7 p.m but only returned to IIUM after performing Maghrib prayer there.

Abu An-Nasr

3rd Day

1. Weekly meeting

• Surprisingly we was told by the manager that in each session, there will be a person who have to give some tazkirah before a meeting begins.
• A couple of projects were named under our responsibilities such as the Kitchen Garden, Bahasa Melayu class for Rohingyas.
  

2. Blog reporting

• In the process of learning on how to organize blog accordingly under the supervision of Brother Muhammad.
• Ended the day at 6.10 p.m.
  

Abu An-Nasr

2nd Day

Today, I had a meeting with UNHCR and refugees representatives at Chinese Assembly Hall KL.

Since we got there before anobody else do, we have to wait for others to come. But it was not a big deal for us. Some breakfast was provided by one of the group representatives. I don't know the name but it seems to be like 'pulut'. Not so bad for me as my first time experience ever eating this food.

More than 3 hours all of us has spent to be in same hall discussing several matters related to all of the communities. It was an honour for me to be given the opportunity to conduct the ice breaking session. Next session was conducted by sister Letchumi, representing the UNHCR which was focusing on reporting the progress of each community.

After the meeting,we went to book shops to seek for suitable teaching materials(books) for the Rohingyas. We will use the books as our references in the Bahasa Melayu class.
Went back to IIUM later on..

Abu An-Nasr

At 2.25 p.m we went to selayang to meet the rohingyas..
The place is located nearby Pasar Borong Kuala Lumpur.

The house is not really in a good condition from my observation using my glass.
Their faces really reflect the hardship they have met before but they look very calm and
yet they still have the faith in Islam; the passion to learn and to perform the ibadah. "Oh my Lord, please give me the strength to perform my duty as Your servant and please do not let me to be a disgrateful servant".

Have the chance to perform the congregational 'Asar prayer with them. The prayer hall was actually the same place where most of all the activities of the community were done there. I could see and compare how Malaysians are very lucky to live in a much more comfortable condition as compared with them. The problem with Malaysians is that they (in this case I am included) are hardly to feel grateful with the nikmat. It is true to the extend that Allah had mentioned in the Quran that there is only a few of His servants who would ever thank Him for the nikmat He gives before us.
The most memorable event was the Du'a recitation after solah.
MasyaAllah..SubhanAllah..TabarakAllah..

An evening with the Rohingyas community

6p.m we then went to ASDAF.

The first thing we did there was looking around the Kitchen Garden, how is the condition of trees

and had some discussion on relocating or perhaps replanting and relanscaping the trees to be more organized in the future insyaAllah..

After maghrib prayer approximately at 8 p.m we had a class with the ASDAF led by our advisor, Brother Muhammad. There were 5 childrens who will take their UPSR soon in our group. Several english exercises were done during the 2 hours session and the score they managed to get was good.

Yet, deep in my mind I was thinking and trying to be empaty, trying to be into their shoes; how they are living, the mind set they tend to have as their principle. There are a lot more I have to learn. My experiences being a part time teacher and facilitator in a 21 days motivational camp hopefully will be beneficial as my guideline.

at 10 p.m went back to IIUM.
The journey will be continued tomorrow.

Abu An-Nasr

the journey begins

Today is a new phase of my life,
A journey from IIUM Gombak to Muslim Aid,
Muhardi and I,together we made our move,
The first day, LRT is our choice,
What a wonderful journey I would ever describe.

Entering Muslim Aid at 9 a.m was like making a new step into a different world,
the 'real' world of life.

Got some general ideas on the tasks and works need to be accomplished for the whole practicum period . The briefing was conducted by Bro. Muhammad as the project manager cum the advisor who will monitor the daily progresses of two of us..

Dealing with Rohingyas and ASDAF will be part of our tasks within the couple of weeks perhaps the next two or three months

but

Before that, we was commanded to create our own blog,
so this is the result of our art of work, I hope so.

Adi came out with his blog namely adisocialwork.blogspot.com
while I have put my blog's name as servingtheummah.blogspot.com

The time is very limited.
After this, we will heading to selayang to meet the rohingyas..

The journey will be continued..

Abu An-Nasr