29th June 2010, Tuesday
This may not be any major reflection, but still, I think it is of my best interests and intentions in contributing to the portfolio and sophistication of the whole group that I state henceforth. I also hope to cultivate this good habit among you guys, my peers, of always updating your status in this blog, so as to keep track of your RE journey and maybe put some commentary in your life! It’s a good habit to record whatever information you can contribute on this blog as a reminder of the past and a reference for the future.
Today I had decided to take into hands an important issue that plagues my sleepless nights. Actually, I managed to discuss with our dear mentor regarding our RE report. I had my concerns:
Ø Firstly, I did not know where we were heading… We had not filled any requirement of an RES-L project, no service so far, no news of Vietnam yet, no idea of the arrangement. Just clueless
Ø Next, I was amiss with regards to the priorities on work allocations to my deer peers. I was worried that by focusing on everything else, we would eventually miss out the report. Guys, know that you’re in safe hands J
Ø Since there is no service in S-L, what’s going to fill up our grades?
Ø Lastly, aww I just have this *firasat* (intuition) that our project can make it for congress. (You know… high aspirations is a positive ideal) so I thought our group will not make it for congress :(
Haha I was pleased when I finally managed to consult my fears and doubts to our Sir, and it is due to his insightful feedback that I felt the necessity to take it down here.
Due to the abnormality of our project, our mentors do know that we had not been able to make any trips to Vietnam to carry out our service to the locals there due to several examples, namely time constraints. As such, our examiners will be assessing in our report 1) what we have done so far and also 2) what we are going to do.
There are 3 areas of research we MUST fulfill:
1) Fundraising
This is the aspect of the project which will take up around 60% of our ‘what we have done so far’ in the report. In many ways, fundraising has been the objective of our research, especially in term 3 where we had our ORA as well as sending out the letters.
There are many details we can link to fundraising. As an example I would like to highlight the visit to the candy shop at ion. By visiting the shop we were actually are having a first-hand experience of a market survey as we were intending to take into consignment several boxes of candy for the upcoming ORA fundraising activity. Another example may be our group’s effort on the 2 posters which were used for the ORA as well. These posters indicate an area of raising awareness, which is common during fundraising as many major nonprofit organizations would like the public to know about what they do as well.
2) Water
This is an area we should turn the spotlights to. I feel that we had not conducted any significant amount of research in this area so far, even though we had initiatives by members to research some purifying techniques such as the tablet which costs US$0.10 each.
These are the areas of interest: water in undeveloped countries, purifying techniques of water, causes of water pollution, ways to prevent pollution, types of diseases spread via water contamination, water conservation, the role the government may play in avoiding contaminated water, so on. The list is not exhaustive, but this is what we should include in the report.
With regards to water, we should also include our plan about how we are coping with the water situation in Quang Nam. There are two parts. Firstly is the part on purifying water, which we should funnel some of our funds into if possible, and secondly it is about the education of the villagers regarding avoiding contaminated water supplies and those stuff.
3) Vietnam
Firstly, we have to include very brief information about the Vietnamese language, the culture of Vietnam, the dos and don’ts of culture shock, since we are visiting our host country. We should also include some information about the government’s plans or policies on water supplies to rural areas, as well as factories near ground zero in Quang Nam which may be polluting the river sources if possible.
Perhaps to conclude our research journey, we can state how the role of the government implicates the life of those in the rural areas. Especially in a developing country like Vietnam, we can observe how the need for industrialization affects the life of villagers there.
Finally I would also like to point out on 2 learning methods that we have to embrace in our report as well as the rest of our RE journey, that is decorative content and procedural content. Decorative content refers to information like facts and statistics and analysis, which is what every report should include. Procedural content is about our methodology, our techniques of carrying our activities, and this also include our learning development process, such as filling up list of companies for letters, raising awareness etc all in the act of fundraising. I am confident that if all works well, we’ll surely score for both guys.
This is why I had got each of you guys to read up on the above subjects for literature review. With the above-mentioned information, you should realize the significance of conducting reviews, so as to gain information and insight, as well to serve as a catalyst for the quest of knowledge.
Guys our first draft is in week 4. Like Mrs. Lim said, the board of scholarships isn’t looking for straight A’s. You know the rest. J
No comments:
Post a Comment