By Nur Farah Noramiza, YES 2016, Malaysia, hosted by ACES in Toledo, OH

For Ramadhan, I was given the chance to organize this year’s Kita Bagi Kita Buka (KBKB) at an orphanage called Rumah Aman. The YES Kita Bagi Kita Buka event is a community service activity organized by YES Alumni Malaysia every Ramadhan (the fasting month for Muslims) to honor the holy month by giving back to the community. “Kita Bagi, Kita Buka’ literally translates as ‘we give, we break-fast.’ Although this might make it sound religious-based, it is in truth not so much religion oriented than it is a chance for community service. Volunteers and/or alumni of various religious backgrounds participate each year. It’s an iftar garnished with a little flavor of volunteerism!

This year we decided to have a book drive among YES alumni and donate children’s books to an orphanage. Since the act of giving is not just in the form of physical things, another idea we had  for this year was to have an English teaching session for the children of Rumah Aman.

We recruited 13 alumni volunteers and lucky for us, two exchange students hosted in Malaysia, Grace and Luna from the United States and France. At 5.00pm, we finally got to meet the 26 children in one of their classrooms. We did an introduction and started off the session with some games to use as ice-breakers and energize the room. Soon enough, they started warming up to us volunteers.

The children ranged in age from 3 to 12 years old. We divided them into three groups by age because they would be at different levels of English language learning. I volunteered for the first group and we participated in some coloring activities. For the second group, they practiced a few English songs and games, and the third group worked on grammar with the workbooks we provided.

At the end of the day, we wrapped up the session and walked with the children to the dining hall downstairs. The moment we had the classroom to ourselves, all the volunteers gathered in a circle and conducted a reflection on our activities that day. To my surprise, everyone loved it and enjoyed every minute of their time teaching and bonding with the kids. I was especially pleased that it was not just me who had fun and was happy to be there. 

After the debrief, we went to join the kids in the dining hall and break the fast with foods such as dates and fruits.

After dinner, we went back to the classroom to say our final thank you's and goodbyes and deliver the 5 boxes of books. I thanked Memuna, the House Mother whom I liaised with in organizing the event, for being so cooperative. It was absolutely delightful to spend the day with the children!

From this whole experience, I am very thankful to have the chance to participate in this wonderful event. I especially would like to thank the two other co-organizers Hannany (YES ‘16) and Afizi (YES ‘16). A special thank you as well to Shafuan (YES ‘12) for guiding us, along with the Malaysia YES Alumni Committee in making this event possible. I look forward to more opportunities like this to come!