On the morning of Saturday, May 26th, the Salt Malaysia team headed to NLCC (New Life Community Centre) again, a wonderful institution in the heartlands of suburban Kuala Lumpur, that we have committed to as part of our CSR pledge. The main purpose of NLCC is to help educate disadvantaged kids with a focus on developing skills in English.
In the light of recent developments in Malaysia, with a shift in government after 61 years, we felt (along with the NLCC organisers) that it would be very appropriate to mark the occasion with a lesson on the following very important principles:
- The State
- Government
- Democracy
- Voting
- Freedom
Whilst such lofty principles may be a deemed a challenge for such young minds, particularly when they are also learning English, we made amazing progress with the kids over the course of the morning. Before long, we had engagement across the board, with all kids at different levels, writing down their ideas on each point, and most importantly, expressing their ideas openly in English.
After the first exercise, we got even more ambitious and talked about what good governments can do for their people, including:
- Education
- Jobs & economy
- Healthcare & welfare
- Crime
- Environment
With brilliant support from the NLCC tutors and the Salt helpers that came along (Aileen Doraisamy, Lynn Chua, Ruby Celine, Jetson Koh and King Meng) we were able to cover these topics and really get the kids engaged. Again, all ideas were shared with their peers, written down in English, and stored in their log books.
Vanitha Samuel, the main NLCC coordinator was delighted with the content we covered and will be using the same content for follow up sessions for the next few classes, so we were even able to leave a bit of a legacy. At the end of the morning, we took a photo with a big cheer for Malaysia!
It was nothing short of an inspiration to spend the morning with NLCC. We hope in our own small way, we were able to give back to the very community that supports us and fulfil our vision to Create Futures in the process.
And the main lesson for myself and the team at Salt – never underestimate kids I guess!
By Sam Baxendale, Regional Director – Asia
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