Here are our general reflections for the project.


Shuen Rong

I personally feel that I myself have been a part of my project, ‘Bridging Gaps’. Throughout this project, many of my experiences had been exactly what our project had been aimed at. Working with my Malaysian counterparts had really showed me the importance of my own project. In our group itself, we do have disputes, arguments and misunderstandings now and then and this is what we want to try to minimize with ‘Bridging Gaps’. Furthermore, I have a sense of satisfaction and perhaps a little grief doing my project. Satisfaction from accomplishing the objectives of this project and seeing our group bond and really succeed. Grief from the setbacks that our project had faced. Although the Influenza A H1N1 virus had really caused much of ‘Bridging Gaps’ not to fall through, I am proud of my group and myself for not giving up and being able to make it through the storm and still achieve our objectives, no doubt at a smaller scale.

Also, I would like to express my satisfaction at how this project has grown and how it affected the participants. Yes, reflections might be the easy way to find out their feelings about our CIP activities, but it is probably very artificial. But seeing them wave at us and saying hello is pretty much all we would want. This shows us that they really feel a bond with us and we have already become their friends, regardless of nationality and age. I personally have seen Singaporeans discriminating against other nationalities because they do not understand their cultures and habits. However, in my class and project work, I work very closely with my Malaysian counterparts and have learnt much about them so thus we had decided to do this project.

Finally, I would just like to reach out to every student who feels that people from other nations and cultures are totally different from us. I want to tell these people that they are not. I have found out that with what I’ve learnt from my project, everyone is equal and capable, regardless of nationalities and cultures. I would always bear this in my mind, and I hope that everyone would too.

Arturo

Since I embarked on this project, I have learnt a lot from my experiences. Doing this project gives me a sense of enjoyment and fulfillment. Probably it is because I see myself working hard to achieve what I want, or maybe it is because I see the smiles on the beneficiaries’ faces.

Bridging Gaps is a special project incorporating local and foreign students and at the same time involve old folks. By having our CIP activities, we are actually helping both the students and the old folks. This is a point that has made me enjoy this project all along.

Throughout the journey, up till now, this project has taught me a lot about responsibility and teamwork as well. We have deadlines we need to follow and many things we need to settle on time. And we also have to work as a team, split up the work so as to ensure efficiency. Independence is another value I learnt. We cannot always depend on our mentor or group leader, we need to take the initiative too.

After a CIP event, I would have a lot of thoughts and emotions after reflecting on the day’s events. I would recall back on the lessons I have learnt and what I can take away.

I still remember once when we were on the excursion to the Changi Airport Terminal 3. I was the tour leader and brought the group around the place. There was a particular old lady that I remember vividly because she taught me a very important lesson through this simple 2-hour trip. She said, “I treat everyone here (in the group) as my parents. I treat them with respect. And so will you.” She repeated these sentences for many times. But every time she said it, I would think that it made more and more sense.

Although it may just be a CIP activity, I learnt to treat everyone with mutual respect and to be more courteous.

Last but not least, I hope that Bridging Gaps can continue to live on even after the projects’ competition. It is something that we can incorporate into out lives. We must learnt to accept ourselves, and accept others.

Henry

One year ago, I arrived here in Singapore, a whole new environment filled with strangers, fierce competitors and many unfriendly Singaporeans. Now that I think of the past, I barely remember the days when I was always surrounded with unfamiliar faces.

Due the gap between our languages (Malaysians tend to speak more Chinese while Singaporeans converse in English), Malaysians always find it difficult to talk to Singaporeans without getting laughed at. However, after the many outings and activities carried out together, us Malaysians started to settle down and were accepted amongst the Singaporeans as fellow students. However, I feel that this is possible because in my batch, there were the least in number of Malaysian students, thus, we are forced to communicate and befriend the locals. However, there are more than 20 students in the new Malaysian batch of 2009, which provides the Malaysians with a more comfortable environment with many friends from the same primary school. Thus, they lose the need to befriend the locals.

When I first took up this project, I joined because of the main objective of the project, which is to narrow the cultural rift amongst the locals and foreigners so that they could work alongside each other better in their 4-6 years of schooling life in Hwa Chong.

So, our group went together and planned many activities and programmes which are aimed to make the locals and foreigners work together. As this was my first time organizing something, I was excited and nervous, and was even afraid of embarrassing myself in front of my peers and juniors. Thanks to my group mates, I was able to overcome this fear and lead the juniors for outings with the elderly at places such as the Marina Barrage and Changi Airport Terminal 3. Furthermore, I have learned the pains of being a leader through the sec 1s. In my opinion, as a leader, one must be always on the move and make important decisions. There are certain problems encountered, the most severe of them is when the students disobey the orders of the leader. Through these brief leading experiences, I learned that a group is almost unable to function at all without a leader who is decisive and bold.

Just when we were planning for our future work, the H1N1 pandemic struck, causing many of our plans to be delayed, forcing our group to re-plan and redo everything. Thanks to the leader, our group managed to buck up and came up with new ideas. I hope that in the future, our efforts in this project would not go to waste and that the locals will make friends with the foreigners as I believe that we all have our strong points and without working together, we are unable to achieve the best results.

William

Since I started doing this project, I learnt many new things while mxing with my Singaporean friends. I feel that this is an all new experience as this is the first attempt at a service-learning project.

Firstly, I learnt about teamwork. There were arguments and disputes among the team mates sometimes. This is the reason why our project is named ‘Bridging Gaps’, to bridge the gap between foreigners and locals. With teamwork, all problems can be solved if the group is united. Hence, teamwork is one important value I learnt more about.

Secondly, I learnt about handing in work on time. This is important as the team leader can only complete the powerpoint presentation with everyon finishing their own parts, for example. Procrastination may lead to a breakdown in team relationships, affecting work efficency. Thus, punctuality is important.

I also learnt about the importance of being hardworking while doing a project. By being hardworking, the efficiency level would also increase. With that trait, the workload can be reduced and the work can be completed quickly.

The ultimate aim of our project is the ‘bridge’ the gap’ between foreigners and locals. It would be an irony if gaps are existent in our own team. Hence, we must ensure that there are no communication breakdowns within out own group and I am proud to say that such communication breakdowns are minimal in our group.

Together, we hope that Bridging Gaps can be a success and most importantly, everyone who participated in this project enjoyed themselves thoroughly while they gained some knowledge.

Han Xin

I first joined this project as I was very concerned about the topic. Indeed, there were some ostracizing issues that I observed, when I first got to Singapore. Some Singaporean students commented on the presence of foreign students, when we, the foreign students, were within earshot. However, it was only after I began to work on the project to find that actually, the dividing line between us can sometimes be very thin. After all, we are all living in a multiracial country, with various religions and many races. So our work focus here was on the lack of integration between local and foreign students instead then, I told myself.

The outdoor trips to Changi, Marina Barrage and such were indeed fun. Most, if not all of us, found the outings fun and interesting. After all, just walking around and talking with the person beside you was easy and surprisingly productive. People learned stuff from each other, even though some might be rather useless.

But, what I have learnt was not from these new found friends. I have acknowledged the significance of being together for a long time. It can bring about the growing and strengthening of bonds as nothing can ever achieve. I have found out firsthand the strength of teamwork. A sort of feeling, one that is indescribable, is gained through it. A group feeling of triumph, I would say. I have learnt that in life, things do not always go your way. Obstacles do arise, almost frequently, and it is us to you yourself to counter it and overcome the problems, or get drowned in the waves. Sometimes, the people you meet are not exactly the type of people you rather them to be, and yet you are forced to mix and interact with them. People with attitudes or characteristics of which you do not approve, but is required to keep around you. In such a situation, you actually learn how to treat them appropriately. As the saying goes, “If you cannot defeat them, join them.” The skills of making these people “join” you comes naturally, when you have experience in such situations. All in all, I found our project very intriguing. Even now, I still feel the echoes of excitement and anticipation from the start of this year, when I first joined the project.



Picked out some interesting photos while preparing the powerpoint slides for finals just now, but there are some problems with Blogger so I cannot upload it now.
But I will put them up soon.
Do look out for them.

it's 11:17 PM now