By IAN YEE

The celebrations haven’t quite ended for the MY Challenge winners from various schools.

Many of them had been too caught up with the talent competition to enjoy each other’s company, but thanks to SM Sri KDU, all 21 medallists had the chance to chill out together on Sunday at a cafe in Sunway Damansara, Selangor.

And not only that, at the party, they were each given an additional RM300 by Sri KDU to go with their MY Challenge prize money.

“It’s always important to recognise and appreciate students’ achievements,” said Sri KDU principal A.K. Chan, who was at the party to meet and congratulate all the medallists.

The boys from Divine Intervention chatting with Isaac Miranda (R) from Blue Addiction during the post-competition get-together for the MY Challenge medal winners.

“I was at the finals, and I noticed there was so little separating the gold, silver and bronze medallists, so we wanted to acknowledge and encourage all of them by giving them this small token.”

To the students, the token wasn’t the main thing. It was also a chance for them to see Best Performer winner Kevin Lim dressed as himself and no longer in character as “Susan” from the winning Drama, Multiracial Lifestyle (by the team from SMK Bandar Utama Damansara 3, Petaling Jaya).

Secondly, the winners got to hang out over some food and drinks, and get to know each other better.
Nicholas Tang, the lead singer of bronze medal-winning band Blue Addiction, said the guys from the Band category had been keeping in touch via Facebook.

“We’ve made quite a few friends, especially with the bands from SM Stella Maris and Sri KDU. Maybe we could work together in the future,” he said.

MY Challenge organiser Zachary Wong was excited to hear talk of future collaborations among the medallists: “They haven’t told me anything yet, but I’ve heard some of them talking about it.”

Zachary also spoke of plans to form a MY Challenge alumni, for medallists who have left secondary school.

“They will get good seats at next year’s finals, and we could even bring them all back to give a special performance,” he said.

The party was organised with money from Sri KDU’s RM20,000 cash prize for winning the MY Challenge champion school title.

According to Chan, the school had set aside RM15,000 from that sum to be given out to all the medallists – irrespective of their schools – as well as organise the celebration party.

“The remaining RM5,000 will go to our school’s performing arts programme,” she said, adding that every school should try to promote performing arts as it gives them new “skills, knowledge and friends”.

“Every school has talented students, but maybe some just lack the funds to give them that chance to perform,” she said.

The MY Challenge medal winners from all seven categories got together for a little post-competition celebration.

Lee Zhan Feng from SMK Kepong Baru, Kuala Lumpur, leader of the Short Film category bronze medal-winning team, said their win at MY Challenge had given a lot of encouragement to students at their school who were interested in arts and music.

“They announced our win at the school assembly,” he said, still visibly delighted. “It was nice. But we’re in Form Five now. It was our last chance to take part in a secondary school competition. We just wish there were competitions like MY Challenge earlier.”