AIESEC LOCAL VIRTUAL VOLUNTEERING PROGRAMME: MAKING A CHANGE, WHEREVER, WHENEVER | BY LIEW YEN ROU
Even when we are faced with barriers, we should not stop helping those in need. Therefore, despite the pandemic, AIESEC in Taylor’s University has shifted from their global physical volunteering programme, which allows volunteers to travel to other countries and serve as volunteers in a cross-cultural environment abroad. This is the second year that AIESEC has held a Local Virtual Volunteer Programme.
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| Source: AIESEC in Malaysia, Taylor's University. |
To the uninitiated, AIESEC is a youth-run non-governmental organisation (NGO) that aims to tackle current issues using the exchange of knowledge such as leadership skills. There are two roles in the organisation: the AIESECers and the volunteers. Not to be confused with each other, AIESECers are the ones who host the volunteering programmes, while the volunteers only contribute to the programmes. AIESECers also organise an NGO hub for crowd funding to run every project and to raise funds to help the unfortunate.
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| Source: AIESEC. |
This year’s Local Virtual Volunteer Programme will be held from 25 July to 22 August. We interviewed former volunteer and current AIESECer Han Min, where she said that during the four-week programme, virtual volunteers will have a two-hour meeting every day except Sunday to discuss content for the programme and prepare for the workshops. The volunteers fix their working hours every day so that they will not be overworked.
Volunteers can choose to participate in any of the three sub-projects for the upcoming volunteering programme, and each of the sub-projects addresses the social issues and contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations. One of the sub-projects for this year’s programme is Light A Refugee’s Dream that fulfils the SDG 4, which is Quality Education. For this sub-project, AIESEC in Taylor’s University will be working with Manna House, which is a refugee education centre for children in Petaling Jaya. Before the pandemic, the volunteers used to visit the centre to teach the children face to face, but these days, teachings can only be done online.
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| Source: AIESEC in Malaysia, Taylor's University. |
We spoke to Clarise Tan, who is a former AIESECer, and she said that the virtual volunteers will be taught to conduct engagement activities for the students so that instead of passive learning, such as reading and learning from a slideshow, students can engage in active learning. As for the remaining weeks of the programme, the project team will focus on workshop preparations and dry runs.
Besides that, there is a sub-project known as Speak Up which also focuses on SDG 4: Quality Education. Speak Up is aimed to empower Malaysian students by providing learning spaces for them to develop their English proficiency, enhancing their personal development and STEM knowledge for future employment. Finally, the third sub-project, Here For You, fulfils SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being. In this sub-project, workshops will be conducted to raise awareness about cancer in public and to let cancer patients know that they are not fighting their battles alone.
To understand the virtual volunteering projects from an AIESECer perspective, Clarise who was the assistant project director of Speak Up for Winter 2021 (January to February) shared her experience on conducting the Speak Up project. The Speak Up project for Winter 2021 was different from the upcoming Speak Up project as it focused on helping the underserved students in Malaysia.
Clarise shared that for the Speak Up project, the six local virtual volunteers engaged in workshops focusing on corporate social responsibility, public speaking, class management and introduction to programming. The reason for this is to allow the LVVs to have the competency to provide quality workshops to the B40 students. Besides handling workshops, Speak Up volunteers participated in three podcast episodes and three Leaning and Development (LnD) sessions as avenues for their personal development. The LVVs also fundraised RM2117.71 and bought 2 laptops for the B40 students.
Through the four-week Virtual Volunteer Programme, Han Min hopes that virtual volunteers can foster new friendships and learn how to work with different people. As a past LVV, she discovered that people work at different paces or do things in a different way. She has since learned to accept these differences. She also wants the volunteers to acknowledge that they are going to be doing something meaningful, which is raising funds for their respective projects to create an impact. She highly recommends everyone to at least join the programme once in their lifetime to understand how AIESEC programmes work. Volunteering for AIESEC does not only contribute to the society, but also to a volunteer’s self-development and to be more aware of what is currently happening in the world.
For this year’s programme, Han Min hopes that volunteers are able to bring a positive attitude into the projects and be inquisitive so that they can gain knowledge from the programme.
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| From top, left to right: Han Min, Liew Yen Rou (writer), Yang Jing Sze, Clarise Tan. |
If you are interested in joining the Virtual Volunteer Programme, simply scan the QR code below!
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| Facebook: AIESEC in Taylor's University, Malaysia. Instagram: @aiesec.tu |
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