Reflection on Service Learning

REFLECTION ON SERVICE LEARNING

(LIGHT UP AUSTISM CHARITY RUN) - NARCISSUS

Task on 28/4/2019 (online learning)

Each group members should prepare their reflection on service-learning charity run with autism. All reflection must be including in your service-learning report.

Please note that this reflection will not be the same as the one in the report . The reflection in the report will be adjusted according to the guidelines preferences. Hence, this reflection is a casual one and consists of constructive comments and honest thoughts about the whole time frame of the program.

MUHAMMAD ALIF BIN MOHD ADNAN 244819

This reflection will consist observations from the beginning(from finding participants) until the end of the program which is the day of the program. Our thoughts on this service learning program is that there is a room for improvement. We know that it is a big event and sometimes inevitable things happened which we could not avoid. First, during the process of finding participants, there was a conflict with the price which we think it is not necessary to put early bird price because there is a lot of confusion plus we cannot expect all of the participants to be paying immediately because most of the participants were student and some of them need to ask the money from their parent.

Hence, it will delayed their paying process and it will exceed the actual date of early birds payment. This had cause confusion among the committee and what not and some of them said that we, the IMC students gave the early birds price to them (participants) even though its already ended. The truth is we already engaged with the participants and they expect the early birds price. Although they already missed the date we barely cannot say anything because we promised them the early birds price. This situation put us in awry because we cannot loose them and the fact that we had promised. So, if anything that should be improved in terms of the price is that the price should be standardized and there is no need for early birds promotion.

Talking about the marketing communication, even though we run the promotion mostly through Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing, we really think there are others initiative that we can try such as marketing through HEP platform in their news and page. With this effort, it will spread to the whole community of UUM and not just only students. Other than that, we think marketing through radio advertising such as UUM official Radio Broadcast and also Kedah FM could increase the awareness about the program.

Now, talking about the communication among the committee, there is definitely a dispute among the marC club and the IMC students. As we were informed earlier that we the IMC students were responsible in the marketing and finding participants and somehow we were appointed as AJK as well because of not having enough committees for the program . That is understandable in a way that this is our service learning to begin with. Along the way, we found that, there were barely any communication in the AJK WhatsApp group and we know nothing about some important updates. There are definitely some information that were not shared with us and we were not aware of that and when we went to the meeting, we were blamed for not knowing any updates about our team (specifically logistic). The AJK leader barely communicate in the group and he is not even functioning in the group and we were the one who got blamed in the end .We think that is a little a bit unfair. Hence, if this kind of program are going to be held in the future, communication especially from the leaders to the team members is very important. Miscommunication may cause dispute and hurt feeling among the committee.

There was definitely a major problem with the shirts process especially distribution. We were told that we will get the shirt in TM Hall and we were disappointed. Next, they told us that the shirts will be distributed at Padang Kawad and again they disappointed us for the second time. Instead, we were told to build and move the tents . First of all, we do not have any problem with doing that but we were disappointed on how they used the shirts as a bait to make us went to the Padang Kawad. We think it will be more professional if they told us the truth about not having enough people to help with the tents and we will be glad to help cause its our program too. So, what we want to highlight here is the way they used us just because this is part of our assignment, they should not be treating us in that kind of sense. This is not just from our group point of view but all of the IMC students. We bare in mind that this is our service learning but we were collaborating with the marC for this program. They should help us as well. When we were building the tents, most of the marC members only watch and stay on the stage and some of them even showing unsatisfied face to us. That is unprofessional at all because it will make more sense if we are the one who should be showing face because we have been deceived.

During the night before the event, the venue was full with IMC students who they said protesting and have no commitment. Most of their AJK were not there during the rehearsals. The reason we are highlighting this issue is not because we want to make things right from our perspective, but there is definitely free riders. In terms of the preparation, we could not believe that a program this “Big” did not have a one week prior to the actual event preparation. Everything seems to be at the very last minute and it was a complete and utter nightmare. During the day of the event, there were many issues arise such as the lack of water bottles, no arrow signs for the run route, the late arrival of AJK’s shirts and etc.

All in all, the program preparation and handling process is not systematic . The director of the program did not function as what a real director should be . Instead the registration AJK seems to standout more than the director. The president of the marC seems to be playing with emotion when its come to handling this program. He acted like all of us the IMC students do not have assignments and other important things to do . He acted like he is the only one who has all the problems . Some of us especially the girls of IMC even need to walk because there were no transportation during midnight from the padang kawad Palapes but they still came and showed their faces and where were the AJK of marC ? Sleeping ? . It might seems like this reflection is a bit harsh on them and sounds like we the IMC students has no mistake at all. We admit there were shortcoming too from our part, such as the late payment and stuff. Since, we were put under their team and we just the followers in the hierarchy we cannot help but complaints after in this reflection.