2017 was a very meaningful and busy year for us. We continued our projects in community, education, and youth, while also starting new initiatives like Global Peace Women and Interfaith and Diversity. Here’s a quick recap of what we did.
1. Community – Communities Unite for Purewater (CUP)
CUP is a clean water project first started in 2016 in Kg. Ulu Geruntum, Perak and Kg. Binjai, Pahang with our partner, Laneige. It is a community-driven initiative — the community is actively involved and participates in the project to foster ownership and accountability, drive local empowerment, and promote capacity-building. Through focus groups and discussions on the issues they face, working together to construct and install piping and tanks, and training sessions where they learn to maintain and care for the filters and water facilities, we build a deep connection and strong relationship with the communities, opening up pathways to further inspire and empower their lives for positive change.
Since then, CUP has expanded to include more villages in both West and East Malaysia. Last year alone, the project benefited more than 2,500 people in 10 communities thanks to our partnership with Laneige, Unilever, and Deutsche Bank. Building on this momentum, we are continuing our efforts with Laneige through their Waterful Sharing Campaign 2018 as well as welcoming onboard our new partners, Asian Finance Bank, YTL Power, and Agensi Inovasi Malaysia to provide clean water to remote and underserved communities.
With the provision of LifeStraw water filters, around 424 villagers living in Kampung Ulu Geroh no longer have to drink and cook with muddy water.
2. Education – Character and Creativity Initiative (CCI)
Education is one of our core pillars and we have always focused on CCI, a Global Peace Education initiative adopted by seven chapters worldwide. CCI seeks to make education more relevant in the twenty-first century by integrating character and creativity into all aspects of school culture towards the development of the whole person. This initiative involves collaboration from the Ministry of Education, corporate partners, and school leaders to transform education and school culture.
We piloted CCI in SMK Puterijaya by working with the school leadership team and teachers through Teachers’ Professional Development training and Educators’ Retreats, where we facilitated the educators towards discovering their personal strengths and how these strengths make them into a more focused and synergistic team. With a stronger determination to work together and a fresh perspective, we then introduce these educators to tools and ideas that can help them make learning a more holistic process, through collaboration, exchange of ideas, and innovative methods.
This year, we are refocusing our efforts towards capacity-building workshops for educators through our Inspiring Educators initiative.
At the end of the programme, over 95% of the educators agreed that they have more motivation to teach and that their sense of purpose have increased.
3. Youth – Raising Moral and Innovative Global Citizens
We organised Junior Changemakers Workshops in three schools; Axcel International School, Kwen Ching Secondary School, and SMK Desa Mahkota. Through interactive workshops that centred on self-discovery and experiential learning, we hope to encourage these youths to feel connected to each other and the larger community so that they can become future changemakers and moral leaders.
Axcel International School students with a puzzle that they completed together during the workshop.
Written by
Yong Joy Anne, Storyteller
Find out more about what we did in 2017 in our Annual Review:
