Campus Cooperation

We had a chance recently to share about Jumble Station to some college students from the Sunway International School. The Deputy Principal Mrs A. Alagarani learnt about JS existence from a mutual friend, dripped by for a visit last month, liked what she saw and felt that the students in her school would benefit greatly from participating in what JS is doing. It seems these students have to put in some 10 hours of community work before they can get their Ontario Secondary School Diploma.

The key purpose is to get the youngsters out of the classrooms and into the real world and for these relatively 'happy' youngsters to be more aware of the 'unhappiness' of the poorer folks as well as to have them actively doing something that can make the neighbourhood they study in, a far better place. With Jumble Station and its little off shoot JS Jr at Desa Mentari Sunway, being literally at their doorstep, it makes a great deal of sense to partner with JS, not forgetting the fact that JS is still the newest kid on the block where charity outreach is concerned.

During the presentation by Mary Anne, the co-founder of JS, students were told of the many ways in which the school could lend a hand - from organising a thematic collection every month (a paper collection one month, an electrical items the next month and toys the following month etc), there could also be a voluntary teaching programme where the youngsters can take turns organising a reading and writing session once or twice a week for only an hour for the children of some 20 single parents at Desa Mentari. Alternatively, they could also be involved in promoting the JS Jr shop at Desa Mentari by sending out the flyers, going door to door to sell items from JS Jr or manning a table filled with toys and knick knacks on the ground floor to drive more customers to the JS Jr store on level 1.

Of greater interest would be the youngsters willingness to participate in the Trade Up 4 JS game where they can use their IT savviness to post items online or email pix of items being offered for trade to manyants@gmail.com so that the game really starts to gather momentum. Considering this is a first for Malaysia, it should be an interesting experiment for the school to be a part of. Deputy Principal Rani says that the students will begin in earnest assisting us around April and supervisor Michael Hills will be there to make sure the campus cooperation arrangement goes smoothly... on our part, JS is really happy to welcome like minded and visionary partners like Sunway International School on board our train of help to the poor!