CHOW QIAN YING and NADIAH SYAHIRAH NIK MOHAMED DIN brats@thestar.com.my

AFTER watching a video of the Classroom Mumbai project, 19-year-old student Elden Choo was so moved and inspired he decided to initiate a volunteer teaching campaign of his own in Malaysia.

In just a month from now, his efforts will finally come to fruition with The 2013 Classroom Experience, an event he’s organising with three other teenagers to help encourage Malaysians to volunteer their time as teachers for underprivileged children.

In Classroom Mumbai, “classrooms” were set-up in public spaces – shopping malls, airports, promenades, etc. – and members of the public were invited to experience the joy of teaching.

The idea is pretty much the same with Choo’s project. All members of the public are welcome to volunteer to teach children from four orphanages outside of their classrooms, to make it a more stimulating learning experience – both for the students and the volunteer teachers.

“Before I started college, I volunteered at an orphanage. There was this young girl who asked me what would she become when she grows up. It made me think – given the educational facilities and infrastructure provided, young people’s knowledge on careers is usually limited to the usual jobs, and I want to help change that,” said Choo, who is the vice-president of the Taylor’s College Subang Jaya Leo Club.

From left: Chia Jia Jun, Karen Yung, Julian Ooi and Elden Choo.

The other three students involved – Julian Ooi, 18; Karen Yung, 19, and Chu Jian Jun, 19 – are all equally passionate about helping underprivileged children get the education they deserve.

They are all from different student clubs/societies in Taylor’s – Ooi is the vice-president of the Rotaract Club, Yung is the president of the Welfare And Charity Keen Youths Society (WACKY) and Chu is the vice-president of the Free Arts Movement (FAM).

“FAM does arts and crafts to raise awareness among the public, so when Elden proposed the idea of this event to me, I felt that it could be a platform to showcase our work through arts and crafts,” said Chu.

The 2013 Classroom Experience event will take place at Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus, Selangor from 10am to 6pm on September 21.

Volunteers will be teaching children aged seven to 10, and they are expected to teach anything they feel they are capable of teaching – mathematics, dance, life skills, etc. – for up to 15 minutes with around 25 students per class.

All four of the organisers agree that the event is also a platform to improve the relationship between their four clubs, so they can look past any rivalry to work towards a common purpose.

“Since clubs like Leo, WACKY and Rotaract have the same purpose, we felt that if we channelled our resources together we could be more effective and make more of an impact,” said Ooi.

“At the same time, it could also bring all the clubs closer together. I guess that would be the main reason why we decided to do this.”

The team is now hoping that they can bring the Classroom Experience to other public spaces like shopping malls.

“Right now, we’re still looking for funds to cover the cost of our event,” said Yung.

* Interested in volunteering for the 2013 Classroom Experience? Find out more by emailing volunteer.cxp2013@gmail.com.