The Star Rage Stand Together Zoom Party (27/10/2020)

#StandTogether Kindness Leader zoom party with Malaysia national gymnast Farah Ann and MMA fighter Ann Osman 

The #StandTogether campaign organised by Star R. AGE is back for its third consecutive year. Traditionally, it was supposed to be held in the first week of April as with previous years, it also is known as national kindness week. But then the covid-19 pandemic came and everything was put on hold.

During the first week of April, we did ask to send in some photos to share some of our kindness stories during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period. I did send a picture of my grandma holding an iPad reading The Star online mobile app because at that time our newspaper delivery person told us no newspapers will be sent to us for eight days, for her to keep up with the news I have to teach her on how to use the mobile app of The Star. 

Five months later, #StandTogether is back on full swing! This time is conducted virtually. As always, we were given a challenge each day to perform an act of kindness. The first day was easy - being kind to ourselves, and the second day was showing gratitude to our family and friends. 

The third day, it got a little tricky because it was supporting a local business. I thought of the pau shop that my aunt always goes to buy my favourite char siew pau and lau sar pau. The fourth day is being kind to our frontline heroes! I have friends who are working as front liners, I dropped them a message to say thank you for keeping us safe amid the pandemic. The last day is giving a compliment to someone by spreading kindness online. 

That's not all! They have a series of virtual workshops for students and teachers to join in the kindness revolution across Malaysia. There is a Google classroom too for students to take part in, unfortunately, I'm over the age limit, but it's okay, more kindness events are on the way one of them is a Zoom party. Today's Zoom party we are honoured to invite our national athletes - gymnast Farah Ann and MMA fighter Ann Osman. 

I was star struck when I see Farah Ann on the computer screen because she is my hero. I met her once on campus three years ago when we had a homecoming ceremony for the students and alumni of Sunway University College, who represented the country at the SEA Games in 2017. Both ladies share the experiences they faced in schools and in the sports world, especially when it comes to online, there is so much negativity and how they overcome it with kindness and empathy. 

Kindness and empathy - are the two traits, which most of us find them to difficult to put into practice in our daily lives. It's all about taking a huge step with courage. As a Kindness Leader, I hope that we could create a kinder society in Malaysia to see the goodness and magic. Like I always use this as my life quote: Have courage and be kind. Looking forward to the next kindness revolution. 

If you want to know more about the Kindness Revolution, click on the links below to find out how we can be a Kindness Leader: 

FB: https://www.facebook.com/StandTogetherMY/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/standtogethermy/

 

UNAM Youth Assembly Conferece: iGem Mini Youth MUN 2020 (21/10/2020-22/10/2020)

 After one and a half months of hiatus, it's time to head back to the Youth Assembly organised by United Nations Association Malaysia, also known as UNAM youth. I was browsing through my Instagram account and it popped out of nowhere that there was another UNAM Youth Assembly, this time to include sustainability education into the Malaysian education system. I was filling up the form, I didn't realise it was two days from the conference. It was a last-minute sign-up. 

How am I going to prepare a position paper in two days, I thought. Usually, position papers in normal MUN conferences, we would take weeks to get it done and hand them to our respective chairs. I quickly messaged Tuck and Ernest - they are the chairs for the conferences, on submitting the position papers, and to my relief, we didn't need to hand in one because it was a mini-conference.

On the day of the conference, it's really a mini one, with only three delegates - Rueben, Roshen and me. For everyone's benefit, we went through the rules of procedures on how the youth assembly would run. In this case, we were representing ourselves as youths, how are we going to convince the "big people" to implement sustainability education into the Malaysian education system. It was firing in the beginning, until the end, we were starting to slow down as we were running out of topic during the General Speakers List (GSL). Our chair, Tuck, gave us the remaining hours of the council to write a resolution. 

The second day, things got a little better because we have our second chair, Ernest, also known as Sherlock, came in as a delegate, alongside Sarah, that did spice up the council for a while. When Tuck asked about delegate to put in the GSL, I decided to step back and let the newcomers - Rueben and Roshen to hop on. We did have a little "controversial topic" in council which really got us into full debate mode, but the rest of the session was really chill. This is the most chill youth assembly I have been to yet compared to the first one on the status of Rohingya Refugees in Malaysia which was a little intense. 

Finally, we got into voting on the draft resolution as a whole. Roshen and I spoke for it while Ernest and Sandra spoke against. In the end, we passed the resolution! I amended a couple of clauses in the draft resolution, which was a first. Usually, I would just comment on the resolution. I did send an amendment once but it failed. Throughout this two-day conference, I learned a lot on climate change and environmental sustainability. I have to admit that I'm not an outdoor person to appreciate Mother Nature, hopefully, after the pandemic is over, we could go out to feel the grass and dirt like how we used to and plan a new seed to brand new dawn. 

 I'm happy to be back on board to help out newcomers. Thank you, Ernest (Sherlock) and Tuck for guiding us, looking forward to the next youth assembly. 

iGem Mini Youth MUN 2020

World Mental Health Day 2020 (10/10/2020)

 Hi, it's been a while since the last post was written. How are you guys feeling? I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy during the pandemic. 

I'm going to talk about a passion that I have been championing which is mental health. Now, the first question is: Who inspired me to be passionate about mental health? They are Britain's TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - Prince William and Kate Middleton, they and the Duke of Sussex - Prince Harry set up a mental health campaign called Heads Together. The Duchess of Cambridge is the brainchild of the campaign. 

My curiosity on mental health was during my freshmen year in college when I heard a couple of suicidal attempts. It was a "culture shock" for me. I didn't bother about that much on mental health. A year later, I was browsing through the online HELLO! magazine, a headline caught my attention on The Duke and Duchess Cambridge and Prince Harry started the Heads Together campaign, I clicked on to the article to read about the new project, that made me learn about more about mental health. 

In 2017, my passion for mental health started to grow. I realised that raising awareness is to pick the right place to speak about and who we are talking to. My university course mates thought I was having a mental health issue that I ended up at the Head of Department's office for questioning. I still remembered it was a week before the final examination of the very first semester in university. I was thinking "Oh gosh, what did I do wrong?" In the end, I decided to put that behind me and continue to champion the cause of mental health on my own. 

2018 was an important year for me because it was the year I turned 21 - the road to adulthood. I promised myself to champion mental health before that big milestone in November. If I want to voice out, where should I go? Model United Nations (MUN) came into mind and off I went! I was happy that I have a voice out my passion for mental health. Thanks to that, I could speak openly without anyone's judgements. 

Looking back now, I'm still going to champion mental health, especially in children because it is important to start them young on the importance on mental health, how could we identify the symptoms of any mental health problems. It's okay to say! If I can normalise mental health, you can too! Let's break the stigma of mental health once and for all!