JOVIN CHEONG YEN SIN
COMMUNITY SERVICE INITIATIVE
Journal & Reflection
This assignment is a group work, which exposed us to a real community living in the real live situation. Student work together as architectural, culture and environmental enhancing activities in the communities of different socio-economic status and social groups. We are allowed to participate one of the three projects that are provided. I have chosen the PPR Seri Berembangan, "In search of Learning Space". In this project, groups are required to create a learning space for the children in the families that were assigned to us. As PPR Seri Berembangan is a low cost flat which have all the poor families that could not afford their children to have a proper learning space, so we are there to solve their problem. As students were assigned to each different families, we have to based on the environment and problems of the family and try to improve their living situation, not only creating learning space, but also solving their other living issues, such as electrical problems, plumbing problem and etc. Below are my journal of my group helping this family.
First Visit
The environment of the house
Lack of lamp in the living hall
The dining table for them to do homework and eat
The store room that store with a lot of things, but this is also the room for us to tranform.
No proper place for the daughters to put their books and bags
The kitchen
The plaster ceiling of the room is tearing off and the wire is loosing. The wall of the room is dirty.
The above photo shows the situation of the house. We visited the family twice before we started to plan on the transformation. First time we visit the family to know them, know about their family living situation and what is their need. From there we get to know the overall life style of the life, the husband is working as a cleaner for the government department, as the mom is working as a electrical appliance boxing worker. Yet their two daughters, which are 15 years old and 14 years old, both studying in the high school nearby. From the conversation, we get to know that the youngest daughter prefer to study by herself quietly, as she said that whenever two of them sitting in the same table, the elder sister always distracting her. In the same time, we also get to know that the elder sister are more untidy, while the youngest daughter are more likely arranging all their things. So from there we get to know that they have a very difference personality.
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Second Visit
Then the second time, we went there to take photo and measure the place that is able for us to create the learning space. In this house, there are 3 rooms, one is the parents room and another one is the daughters' room, while the remaining room is the store room. When we were discussing with the family, the mom said that we can actually use the store room to create a learning space for them. So after the discussion, we decided to transform the store room to the learning room while still remaining the storage function. As you can see from the photo above, the things are really a lot in the room, and the daughters just leave their books on the small table in the living room and they also keep all their book in their cousin house, that are located upstairs of the same flat, but it still inconvenient for them to get their book whenever they need it. During the time they wanted to do their homework, they have to use the dining table as their desk. So according to all this problem they face, after the second visit, we came back to uni to have discussion for a few time and make up some planing for them, all these planing are recorded in our proposal.
Proposal
Purchase Furniture
After that, we proposed this proposal to our lecturers to let them know the situation of the house and what we plan to do for the family. In the mean time, we also discuss a few times with our lecturer about the changes of our planing. We also keep in touch with the family and let them know what we gonna do for them and ask for their permissions and opinion. After all the discussion, my group went to IKEA and Tesco to buy furniture. We bought two big shelves, chairs and curtain from IKEA, while bought two desk that comes with book shelf and fan from Tesco. Because there are limited budget, so we try to focus on the learning space. While our uni did provide some electrical fixing and plumbing fixing to solve the family problems which help us a lot on the limited budget problem.
Transformation Day
After the purchasing of furniture, we brought all our tools and furniture back to the family, it was a Saturday morning that we started our initiative, we first clean up the room by moving out everything in the room, then wipe it clean and some of us start cleaning up the room. While cleaning up, some of my groupmates started to build up the furniture, while me and another two members were painting the room. In the same time, two members were buying some missing tools, and flooring plastic from MR. DIY. After a few hours of hard work, we finally clean up and repaint the whole room, and move in all the furniture. Below are some of the process of transformation, the complete transformation can be seen in our video.
Used white paint to touch up and repaint abit of the room.
Installing the desk for the daughters.
Sticking up the floor mat to put in the room.
Used plaster to fill up the cracking of walls and ceiling.
Installing rack to solve storage problem.
The daughter using the desk to do their homework.
Reflection
In this project, I have learned a lot, I learned to be more appreciate for what I have now, learn to deal with real live situation and others. Besides, I also know the importance of team dynamic, if without my group, we would not get such an awesome and satisfaction project done. Even though we know that this is just a project, but we still try to do our best to help the family to change the living environment and create a cozy learning space for their children, as we know that children is the future hope, we should not buried their ambitious and chances that make them to become a better and excellent person. Lastly, I would like to appreciate my lecturers for their patient and guidance, this project would not be this success without them, it's not only guidance, they also teach us how to deal with the situation and give us useful advice, we get to learn so much from them. THANK YOU my group members, lecturers and also the family that give us the chance to involve in this meaningful project.