Young Changemakers workshop tour coming to Sabah
KUALA LUMPUR: Are you courageous, resilient and inspire to make the world a better place? The 2018 Tuanku Bainun Young Changemakers Award (YCMA) is up for grabs.
The award comprises four categories, namely individual (six to 12 years); individual (13 to 15); group (six to 17) and the newly-introduced enabler award category for parents, family, teachers or local leaders.
Nominations for the award which opened yesterday, will close on Aug 31.
The search for the potential recipients kicked off yesterday morning at the Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Taman Melati here, with a 14-state changemaking workshop tour.
The workshop tour which began in Kuala Lumpur will move on to Selangor, Perak, Perlis, Kedah, Penang, Terengganu, Kelantan, Pahang, Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan, Sabah, Sarawak, and would be complemented with the search for the Young Changemakers.
Past YCMA recipients including Firdaus Ahmad Farouk, 17, who won the award in 2015, and nine-yearold Serena Zara Taufiq who received her accolade in 2016, were present at the award’s launch ceremony yesterday, to share their experiences as Young Changemakers.
Serena Zara told Bernama she started her very own accessories business, ‘Serena’s Secret’, more than two years ago to help fund speech therapies for people with autism, after realising that some of them could not afford therapy.
She generated more than RM25,000 from the sale of her bracelets last year, and RM8,100 this year, thus far, before donating the proceeds to charity.
Firdaus meanwhile, fed the homeless via the ‘Feeding the Needy’ soup kitchen at Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman every Thursday night without fail, alongside his mother, Zarina Zainuddin.
YCMA was launched in between four hours of workshop conducted by Pertubuhan Pembangunan Kendiri Wanita dan Gadis (WOMEN:girls) executive director Abby Latif, where 200 students from SK Taman Melati and Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) Taman Melati were introduced to the idea of changemaking and to the United Nations Global Goals.
The students were also taught how to map out their resources in initiating their own changemaking projects, as well as how to use social media in communicating the messages and call for action to their changemaking projects.
WOMEN:girls founding president Low Ngai Yuen said those interested could go to www.womengirls.org for more information on the award or fill up a nomination form through their teachers at participating schools.
“YCMA was introduced to empower young people that they can make a big change... young people think they need to grow up before they can make a change but that is not true, you can make a change at any time in your life.
“We also want to give them role models to say that ‘these are young people that have done it’, and they are Malaysians,” she said when asked on the objectives of the award.
She added the Young Changemakers was a celebration of young people who were making social impact through initiatives and projects that they had started within their communities, and the YCMA recognised these people to enable their stories to be heard, as well as to inspire other children to change the world.
A collaboration involving WOMEN:girls, Education Ministry, Yayasan GAMUDA and Pusat Kreatif Kanak-Kanak Tuanku Bainun, the award was initiated in 2015, in conjunction with Universal Children’s Day on Nov 20.
Founded in 2011, WOMEN: girls is a cause-driven, notfor-profit social enterprise that is all about empowering and inspiring women to be role models and aspiring girls to become agents of change.