Global Engagement Speaker Series (GESS) is a project by ECLIPSE in giving the opportunity for the youth to adopt and foster soft skills holistically while gaining new knowledge and insights. This project consists of various talk sessions with multiple global speakers. Recently, the first session of GESS was held with a very amazing speaker from Pakistan, Ms. Maryam Mohiuddin Ahmed, the founder and director of Social Innovation Lab. Ms. Maryam is currently based in Toronto, Canada.
The talk mainly focused on how the youth can contribute to society without having many resources as most of us do not possess enough of them to give back to others. With that in mind, we named the session “Giving Back: Where to Start”. This session was held successfully on last Friday, 30th April 2021 from 10 A.M. until 11.30 A.M. with Cisco Webex as the platform.
The moderator for the session was Azida Azmi, who was recently awarded the Tokoh Pelajar of Akademi Pengajian Bahasa for the overall category (Congratulations Ezzy!).
According to the committee members of GESS, 93 participants paid to attend the session and a total of 88 participants joined the talk on that particular day. Surprisingly, said the Project Manager, Nuradriana, the session was a huge success as it left a great first impression as the ignition of the GESS project.
Throughout the session, Ms. Maryam shared with us some important things to note down when giving back to the society. There was abundant new knowledge that we have gained but to sum up some of them are:
You just need time to actually contribute to society. There are so many opportunities out there, just take your time and find any kind of socially impactful activities to join! If you have other resources, even better then :)
Work WITH the community you are helping, not work FOR them.
Speak from the heart, to the heart.
Do not just come to a community, and offer solutions out of nowhere. Try listening to them, ask them what THEY need, not what YOU have to offer.
It is okay to speak up on behalf of others, but do not silent their voices. Take into account on what they have to say.
Keep in mind that giving back to others does not necessarily mean you will receive something back.
When you feel tired, take some rest, fall into your support system’s embrace and do something that takes away your stress.
Picture 2 : Ms. Maryam on the importance of support system in giving back to society
Ms. Maryam mentioned that if there is something that we can gain from giving back, it is our own selves. We improve with every kindness we give to others. Inspiring, right? She also mentioned a few people that she looks up to in her journey of contributing to the community - Kamil Khan Mumtaz, Viyay Podar, Shahida Saleem, Beatriz Rodriguez and Anjum Altaf.
From the feedback received by the committee, most participants have agreed that this talk was very informative and they felt inspired to start giving back to society. As if this session was a call for them to try something out, even the littlest thing they can do. Quoting Ms. Maryam :
“A group of young people with good hearts can create such a huge impact.”
Baby steps are okay. Start small, because even a very little amount of force can move something. So why not just do it? Let’s create a positive social impact with the power we have! :D
We believe that the upcoming episodes of Global Engagement Speaker Series (GESS) will be just as informative and beneficial as this, so we are looking forward to those. Yay! More knowledge and insights to come, if God wills.
Picture 3 : Ms. Maryam and participants of GESS 1
Proofread by Ilyana Elisa & Illya-Wardina
Published by Aisyah Hanim
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