Next Big Thing : Final Presentation

Assalamualaikum. It has been a while since this blog is updated. We waited for the result for the final 5 to be announced. And alhamdulillah, our group has made it to the next round.

It is an honour for us to have such opportunity in being the top 5 groups to be qualified in competing for the first place.

Wish us LUCK for tomorrow, as we will certainly try our very best in the final presentation. May the best group win.

ps: We would like to take this opportunity to say THANX to everyone who has voted for us before, or has been involved throughout our project directly and indirectly.

Sincere words from us..

In this competition, the Wonderers has had opportunities of visiting 2 selected villages, that is Kg Sg Hj Dorani, Sungai Besar and Felda Bukit Cherakah, Meru, Klang.

In these two visits, we had experienced interactions and communications with the villagers, about their normal life and ICT. We had the priceless experience of getting to know them better and share our valuable knowledge with them.

We are really happy to get such opportunity through Maxis Bridging Community, having chosen as the top 10 finalists. We couldn't thank the sponsors enough.

thank you for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

the Wonderers

Trip to Felda Bukit Cherakah

Origin of our plan..

During our visit to Maxis Academy with Abg Zul on 6th Oct 07, we have came across an idea of going to one of the nearest Felda in Klang, named Felda Bukit Cherakah. We realized this village while we were on the way to Kg Sg Hj Dorani on the previous week. We discussed it with Abg Zul, which encouraged us greatly in doing beneficial activities there . Besides meeting with our objective, we could also interact closely with communities in the chosen Felda .

After searching for the contact number of Felda Bkt Cherakah, we decided to try our best in accomplishing our plan, and get more motivated with the encouragement of our supportive mentor, Abg Zul.

Efforts of making the trip a Reality..

We managed to call the related person a few days after the visit with Abg Zul. We were really glad that the influential person of Felda Bukit Cherakah himself, Encik Hj Alwi gave us his full support towards our activity at the Felda .

Besides informing him the required details through phone, we emailed and fax him our headletter, which contains all the particular details of our trip. Alhamdulillah, our visit proposal has been approved and the date for the trip has been finalized, that is on 3rd November 2007 .

when the final date is confirmed, we discussed about issues such as souvenirs for selected person, reconfirm activities so forth. Later, we had enough rest, for the BIG day .

3rd November 2007 = BIG Day

Finally..

That morning, we woke up really early in the morning, in order to be ready by 7.30 AM at Kolej Delima's car park..

All of us (the Wonderers) brought our own laptop to be used there, while Syida brings her wireless router as a backup. We began our journey at 8.00 AM. The first thing that crossed our mind that morning was BREAKFAST. With empty stomachs and sleepy faces, we searched for kuih and drinks for breakfast .

Full stomach can sometimes make you more energetic and active, which applies to US that morning. We were excitedly eager to arrive at the kampung and meet up with the villagers there .

When we arrived at the entrance of Felda Bukit Cherakah, we called En Rosli Daud, the contact person of the journey, also known as personal assistant for the top person of the kampung, En Hj Alwi.

We waited for him at a futsal court near the entrance. He then lead us to En Muzammil's house, where will be the place for us to do all our activities. En Muzammil's house were selected because of the usage of internet in his house. Availability of internet were very important for us, for the effectiveness of our planned activity .

En Muzammil and his wife welcomed us gratefully . We went into his house and had a few chat with him. It didn't took us long after that to set up our laptops and the wireless connection to gain Internet. We had to finish setting up before we start any of our activity.

Alhamdulillah, we managed to set up Internet connections easily, without much problem. En Muzammil then invited us to have breakfast in his house, with the villagers that came. The increasing number of villagers made us even more excited to start the activity .

After we finished eating, our project manager, Syida, gave a brief introduction and explanation to the villagers that came . Pamphlets were also being distributed while the speech is given out, which helps our listeners to understand more about us and our activities.

We managed to start the activity as soon after the speech finished. People that came were invited to go to the front balcony of En Muzammil's house where our laptops were placed. Each of us then entertained and taught the villagers about Yahoo! Group and details about blog .

Besides explaining the benefit of both applications, we taught them of how to create a blog, elements to be put in a blog, and answer all their curiosity through detailed explanation. The ability of surfing the Internet there really helped us in explaining to them in a smoother way. It has somehow made both parties comfortable enough to teach and learn new things.

Their eagerness to know about things has somehow made us more enthusiast in explaining, for them to understand better, in a simpler way .

It made us carried away, and did not even realize that it was already 12.00 PM, which is supposed to be the time that we finish all activities and head back to Shah Alam . We extended the the activity till 12.30 PM. We packed our things back after we took pictures with our loyal participants..

We had lunch with En Muzammil for a while, before going back to Shah Alam. We thanked him and his family for the priceless effort that has been given throughout our presence there .

We then head back to Shah Alam with a very satisfied feeling. The experience was highly valuable and priceless. The tremendous support overwhelmed us, which made us smile all the way back to our hostel. Tiring but worth it. That was what we truly felt that day .

Selamat Hari Raya..

assalamualaikum, and hi again to all the readers out there..

first of all, we hope it's not tooo late to wish all of u 'SELAMAT HARI RAYA, MAAF ZAHIR AND BATIN' from us, The Wonderers.



We would hereby apologize for any misunderstanding caused, any mistakes done, or anything that has hurt anybody's feeling. [kami menyusun sepuluh jari, dan memohon maaf dari hujung rambut ke hujung kaki jika ada sebarang salah dan silap.]

May God bless us all. Amin.

Journey to Kg Sg Hj Dorani (PART 2)

Assalamualaikum again my fellow readers. greetings..

** As promised before, we are going to tell about the rest of our journey... The first part of the journey (click here to view the 1st part of the journey) has been told earlier. The first part tells about the 1st phase of our journey, while the 2nd part explains the rest. The 1st phase explains how we interact and discussed with the secretary of the village, Pak Yatim, and the agreement between the team and him.. **

heee..At last, its time for the team, and supporters (which helped us A LOT by giving moral support and in doing the activities together with us..) to approach the villagers to accomplish our mission.

We (the Wonderers) had agreed to do a few activities here in this village. Besides having a concept of 'mentor-mentee' between the youths and kids in the village with us, we also planned to share our knowledge about ICT with them. This is to enhance the interest towards ICT in them, besides exposing them to the current communication through ICT applied.

After we've met Pak Yatim, its finally the time for us to seek the villagers. After a few minutes of driving, we stopped at one of the corner of the village, where the houses are close to each other (it somehow makes our approach more effective when the houses are near to each other).

All of us split into 3 groups, approaching house by house. At that time (nearly 12 PM), most villagers gathered in front of of their house and were cutting fruits to make 'jeruk'. According to them, these fruits were provided by a Chinese man, and after cutting the fruits and make jeruk, the Chinese paid them RM5 for a big basket of jeruk. They were average and older women, with their children playing around them. It was fun to see such thing. .

We waited no longer, and approached these villagers. At one of the houses, the mother called her daughter when we mentioned about ICT, computers and Internet, while her little sons stood all around us. They were keen to know what's going on, and what computer is all about. The interest that they showed attracted us to explain to them the basic things about computer. It made them even more excited when we brought laptop to show them the content of it. .

A few minutes later, her daughter came to us, as she stayed in her room before this due to the shyness she has towards the boys in our team. . We (the girls) had to actually ask ALL the boys in our team to go to the corner of the house, in order to attract the daughter to come to us...

They (the daughter and her little brothers) then surrounded Fara, which was the one holding the laptop. Dila explained to them one by one, about blog, Yahoo! Group, and ICT in common. They seemed attracted. , while Syida and Shera approached others that were in front of the house too.. We made few conversations with the granny, mother, and the rest of the family. The friendliness in them made us comfortable during the chat. .

During the chat, one of our team members actually felt sad . It started out when one of the makcik's son joined in the chit chat with elder ones. The boy looks concerned towards our chat. When the team members tried to explained to them about ICT ect, that makcik suddenly said, "takpe dik, tak payah cakap dengan budak tu. dia tu pelat, susah nak paham..". The team member kept quiet for a while, wondering the little boy's weakness. It reminded her of her little brother at home, and what if her liitle bro's in this condition. Her feeling was touched. . All she could is to pray for the kid's success, and may the child gow up to be a wise and successful gentlemen. Amin.

hmmm..

At the end of the chit chat, and explanations by the team, we shook on their hands. Shera, while smiling, said,"sedapnye bau jeruk ni. kalau tak puasa, bole la merasa", in a kidding mode. Shockly, the granny went to the kitchen, and took out a plastic bag full of jeruk! . We said, "eh, takpela makcik, kami gurau je. tak payah la makcik, menyusahkan makcik je..". But then the granny insisted in giving the jeruk. We then accepted it, and expressed a million thanx to the family, for their jeruk and positive support to us.

We went a few more houses, and approached the villagers in a friendly way. There were even kids that called upon their friends, and gathered them in front of the surau. All of us had a rest at the side of the surau, while a few of us explained to the kids about our activity. It shocked us again, when the kids said," kami tahu komputer, tapi tak pernah pegang. cikgu je yang pegang. ada kat sekolah je. kat rumah kami takde..". It shows that they were never exposed widely to computers. Syida and Shera told them about computer, and how it can actually bring them closer to the outside world. Fairuz said, "korg pernah dengar tak orang kat Malaysia borak-borak dengan orang kat India ke, England ke, pada masa yang sama. Macam tu la konsep chatting kat Internet. Benda tu semua ada dalam komputer,...". We tried our best to explain to them in the most interesting way.

We soon opened our laptops, and showed them the basic functionality of it, such as listening to music, play games and watch favourite cartoon series through it. They seemed attracted. . At the end of our chat with the kids, Nina said," nanti, adik-adik belajar bersungguh, masuk universiti, pastu beli la komputer. nanti mak ayah adik pun gembira kalau adik jadi orang yang berjaya masa besar nanti..".

10 minutes later, after having a small discussion between us (the Wonderers and supporters), we agreed to stop by Pak Yatim's house, to inform him that we were about to leave. After stopping by and say thanx to him, we went back..

We were happy and satisfied on the visit to the village. The satisfaction of communicating, explaining, the chit chats, and the responds of the community cannot be expressed by words. It overwhelmed us. And priceless.

We stopped by at a nearby mosque on the way back, to perform prayer. Nearly two hours later, we arrived at Shah Alam. We chose 'Seri Bunga Tomyam Seafood' in Sek 20 as the place to 'berbuka puasa' ramai-ramai, after a tiring day. .

* we forgot to mention something. We had given pamphlets and small gifts to the villagers that we met. The smile in their faces had somehow soothed us

the pictures that we took can be seen in the slideshow below. Enjoy it!