E-Journal | CSI Week 1 - Week 3

Before the CSI module is introduced

I was very excited when I came to this module because I like to do charity, I like to go to orphanages/ old folks home to have interactions with them, yea, and I always found my happiness when interacting with them. However, due to this unprecedented incident which is the Covid-19 Pandemic,  Taylor's had made a huge decision to held lecture classes online, to practice social distancing😧. And so does this module, we are not allowed to have physical close interaction with the orphanages/ old folks home/ etc.. Instead, everything is online which we need to do proposal writing & etc... For the group project, we were given 2 choices either to do research writing or do online activities.😬 

My Feeling when the project is introduced

As I am that kind of person who likes to organise, plan, manage events/ activities, and that's why I am interested to do online activities project rather than research writing. And I was also excited to work with a different group, but, it turns out I have to work with my FYP group members 😢 Not because I don't like working with them, but it's because we got many projects that working in the same group and sometime's it's quite confusing and messy as we discuss all different projects in the same group chat. 

One more point, it's because we have already get used to our group working environment, not saying it's bored to see them every day 😆, but it's just because nowadays all the projects have to work online, I feel it would be good if there are different kind of working environment which means working with different new group members. I didn't raise my opinion is because I thought that there might be some people who prefer to stay in their comfort zone rather than have a new working environment. (BUT I still love my group members, they all meant so much to me😘)

Challenges & how we tackle

As mentioned above, the challenges that we faced in the 1st week was there are too many projects/ assignments we have to discuss and work together in the same group chat. It's very messy and confusing. Hence, to tackle this problem we have set dates & time to discuss a specific module/ project. Not only for this module, for all the module as well. It is to make it clear and less confusing when we are having a meeting call.😁 It turns out quite well.

And then in the first week, we started by listing out the things that we need to do for the project and we use Trello to set ourselves tasks and deadline for each task to get ourselves on track and make sure we don't miss out any deadlines. Then we started to brainstorm by throwing (listing) all the problems/ issues that currently happened in Malaysia. Then, we had a meeting call to discuss together the issues and solution/ activities/ any idea that can help to tackle the current issue.😇

It works pretty well in the first week, but when it comes to the second week, everyone just feels very unmotivated. It might be due to there are too much of ideas we are throwing out in the discussion, and we did not have an apparent direction to focus on. At that point, I felt that I need to apply some of my event planning skill from my previous experience and take the lead in the group as well as motivates them👵. I think it works well as things get clearer and everyone in the group is on the same page of the concept. And so we are planning the activities that are more focusing on the concept that we set. It might not be the perfect one, but at least we narrow it down the things that we want to achieve.

Current Stage

So, we have appointed Lin Han to be the group leader for this subject. And all of us have decided and agreed on the idea which we will organise some sort of online campaign that in conjunction with Mental health awareness Month.💚 The aim is to raise awareness of depression and mental illness.

Nowadays, depression has been a serious issue in society as it might affect one's emotion and mental health as well as commit suicide. During this period, there is so much news reported that overload information about the crisis recently might cause one feels anxiety, stress and depression. Especially during the MCO period, people were isolated, and BeFrienders reported that there's a spike of the calls to seek for mental support. Students stranded on various campuses around the country also has a big chance of diagnosed with mental illness.

In this stage, we are working on the activities planning, proposal writing and approaching the NGO  platform and Taylor's club and society that related to Mental health support at the same time. By knowing each of the group member's strength, the tasks were delegated and assigned well. Each of the strength of the group member is also the strength of our group. 😝For example, Chrissa and I have a lot of connections or networking with the clubs and society in Taylor's. It's easier for us to reach Taylor's students to participate in these activities.  Phyllis gave a lot of ideas in planning the activities, Cindy is the designer of the group as she has a perfect sense in terms of poster editing skill, and she will be in charge of the social media platform as well. Lastly, Lin Han is the leader because he has the leadership skill, and he manages & organises things very well. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, overall during the process, I feel still okay as we have been gone through up and down in terms of setting the ideas.😂 I need some time to adapt to this kind of online activities. Even though it is challenging for everyone, I feel very excited to accept this challenge.👐 And I feel good when we can handle the disruptions during the execution of the project in the first phrase together. 💖