By PHYLLIS HO
alltherage@thestar.com.my

Winner of the short film category, Lee Kha Sheng and his team spent RM20,000 to produce a promotional video for Vinashini Home.

ENGINEERING student Lee Kha Sheng, 18, is either a really generous, philanthropic guy, or just terrible at maths. He spent RM20,000 producing a promotional video for a welfare home, to enter a short film competition where the total prize money for all the winners was RM18,000.

But since he’s in engineering, we’d say he probably got the math right.

Thankfully, Lee’s generosity paid off as he ended up winning the competition, the short film category of Magnum CSR’s Youth In Charge project.

More importantly, however, his win meant that the charity he selected to feature in his film, the Vinashini Home welfare centre for physically and mentally challenged children, received an RM10,000 donation from Magnum CSR.

“I have joined many video competitions, and in all of them the winners were selected based on their creativity,” said Lee during the prize presentation ceremony last month. “But this competition is different, because the participants are also able to help the charity homes.”

The competition had three categories – short film production, website design and brochure design. Participants were required to select one of 55 welfare homes picked by Magnum CSR, and visit the selected home before producing their entries.

Five entries were shortlisted from each category and were put up for public voting. A panel of judges from the creative industry, including AC Creations Media founder and executive producer Andy Chan and Saatchi & Saatchi Arachnid general manager David Soo, were also brought in to help participants improve their work.

Lee’s winning entry, Change, tells the story of a college student who discovers the joy of volunteering at welfare homes after spending a day at Vinashini Home for a class assignment.

“The objective of the video is to encourage young people to spend time at welfare homes. Only then can they really understand what the people are going through,” said Lee.

Another equally enthusiastic participant, graphic design student Pang Chi Chow, 22, won in the website design and brochure design categories. Pang had assembled a team of 16 to produce entries for all three categories, in support of Pertubuhan Kebajikan Anak Yatim Mary.

Pang hopes that through campaigns like Youth In Charge, young Malaysians will be inspired to help those in need.

“I hope the youth will start thinking about social problems that are already long-standing. The residents of these homes need help in the long-term, not just a one-time donation,” he said.

The welfare homes selected by all the other shortlisted entries also received a donation of RM2,000 from Magnum CSR.

According to Magnum Group CSR head Beh Swan Swan, the campaign was a “win-win-win” for all parties involved. “Magnum achieves the objective of getting youth involved in the community, the homes benefit from the output of the youths, and the youths benefit from the experience gained as they can add this to their portfolio of achievements.”

This article was written by a member of the BRATs, The Star’s young journalist programme. For more info, log on to facebook.com/starbrats.