Adapting to change...

It has been sometime since I last come on board... haha because my PC giving me some problems, finally resolved =) [Is your machine giving you problem? If not, why aren't you writing? Nothing worth discussing regarding BK/MYG? Maybe we should make sure everyone post something in the blog on a regular basis ;D]

Pat and I met up with some MYG volunteers during a gathering for a ex-volunteer who is now working in Bahrain. Ha ha quiet a good mix, volunteers from AMK, RO, WE, BK... almost EP (but Huafang can't make it last min). Beside updating each others, we just never stop talking about MYG, our clients, our volunteers.... haha, a group of senior volunteers still so active for MYG :p

AMK and BK were projects set up the earliest, we are 25 this year & AMK, 26th. Both have almost identical clients profile because we were set up for the same objective but serving clients from different parts of the island.

We faced the same issues such as ageing trainees, volunteers shortage, objectives/lessons for our trainees... fortunately, MYG is setting up task force to look into the ageing issues and if you have any views just let me know.

Volunteers retention is always an issue for both projects, primary reason is our trainees' profile and then follow by volunteers' profile. We can't change our trainees' profile because the project exist for that reason. But we can definitely adapt to the changing profile of volunteers. We will have to manage volunteer's expectation much differently compared to the past. In addition, more and more VWOs are coming out and "competition" for a already limited pool of volunteers are getting tougher. How are we going to do that? Ha ha, we really have a good discussion on this and I shall keep it for discussion with the committee.

Objectives/lessons for our trainees. Do you know MYG projects (especially the 1st 5 projects) follow almost an identical programme - singalong, individual lesson, vocational training (which we changed it to PE/handicraft a few years ago) , tea break? We replaced vocational training to PE/handicraft as we felt back then that there is no longer a need to do headphone coiling for group B & C trainees since they are unlikely to work in EDC and physical exercise is a good form for them to sweat it out & stay fit =) This is an example of change.

Year in year out, GLs will discuss within the group to formulate new training programme for their trainees and if we observed closely, what's done now might have already been done 5-10 years ago. Also, we are running out of ideas on what types of programme are going to be useful for our trainees. We agreed that doing academic stuff is no longer relevant for our ageing trainees, we might have to focus on some life skill, self-care! And we also felt that it can be rather stressful for our volunteers to plan for programmes that our trainees will enjoy (fresh, creative tasks to attract and substain interest?). In the end, we felt doing recreational, social interaction activities might be something worth considering, beside making lesson fun for trainees, volunteers will also enjoy & prefer facilitating such activities. [Ha ha a win-win situation for trainees & volunteers] Within BK, we have been doing individual lesson cum games/interactive activites for our trainees... that's great & hope we can continue to do well and grow the project

Maybe we should expand our network, have more such discussions, finding out more from other projects and learn from each other. Together, we can adapt ourself to the changing time and progress....


-choon seng

PS: You can consider writing something on our coming 25th anniversary... we are 25 this year!