What is community service???
- is a non-paying job by performed by someone or a group of people for the benefit of the public or its institutions.
- it may be required by a government as a part of citizenship requirements, generally in lieu of military service
- it may be mandated by schools to meet the requirements of a class, such as in the case of service-learning or to meet the requirements of graduation.
- community service can help any group of people in need:
children, senior citizens, people with disabilities
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-Chapter 1-
I had this community service group project which consist of 10 people in charge of outdoor task in Kompleks Penyayang Bakti located in Bandar Sri Damansara. We had to design some outdoor furniture for them, we was told that most of the residents in this place are senior citizens. Therefore the furniture that we proposed must be safe and user friendly for these people. We had to consider few aspects in this project for the senior citizen, in terms of material selection, durability, safety, types of furniture, ergonomics and etc. And we also had to consider their needs in the Kompleks Penyayang Bakti.
We discussed among ourselves and proposed few ideas for them, and eventually 2 of the ideas get approved by the lecturers and also the person in charge in the Kompleks Penyayang Bakti. Below are the 2 ideas that got approved:
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| This idea is using recycle bottle to create a hanging plantation for the gazebo area. |
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| By using vent bricks and wood planks, create a bench or a coffee table for that area. |
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-Chapter 2-
After discussion and sourcing tools & material in Kepong, we started doing the bottles the next morning in our studio. We decided to choose pastel colors for the bottles as we hoped that it might brighten up the environment for the residents and also make them feel joyful for the colors we selectedWe gathered almost 80 recycled bottles for the plantation but actually just 60 of them are needed. We could choose the 60 good condition bottles in the 80 of them. We rinsed all the bottles one by one together and we experimented on a bottle together to decide on how wide the opening should be and or position of the hole that we need to drill.
We  had a short discussion to separate the task among us. Jia yee and Wei Xin would be in charge of drilling hole on bottles. While Susanti & Yii Min were marking dots for them to drill. I'm in charging of measuring and drawing the guideline for the opening of the bottles. SK and Sue Yi were the team to cut the bottles opening while Samantha were the one who wipe the internal of the bottles. While the spraying part at outside of the studio, would be in charged by Phaik Yan, and Susanti joined her after she done her part in the studio. Below are some image compilation on the process of making the bottles for plantation:
During the entire process, we were all helping each other to work more efficiently. We tied the bottles according to the color arrangement that we decided earlier. After we tied all the water bottles up, we arranged them on the floor to avoid the rope tangle together. It's already dinner time after we done all our jobs in the studio and we were so looking forward to install all our hard work in Kompleks Penyayang Bakti.
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| Bottles are arranged on the floor according to the color arrangement |
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-Chapter 3-
This were the day that we were all excited about the installation of the plantation and the bench. Early in the morning of Sunday, we had our breakfast and headed to Kompleks Penyayang Bakti which located at Bandar Sri Damansara. Upon arriving, we moved all the tools and equipment that we had to the gazebo and started to clean the lawn area. We were told that the area have to be neat and clean together with our furniture there. However the grass there were too long and messy that we had to trim it by ourselves. Since we don't have any tools to trim the grass, we had to use our bare hand to plug the grass up and some of us were using scissors to cut it. I admit that this is the very first time that all of us were using our bare hand to clear the grass. We cleaned the lawn within an hour while waiting for Sue Yi to take the plants from the plant nursery.
As we all put everything in her car, therefore we had to carry all the wood planks, vent blocks, cement, sands, plants from her car. This was the time to show our girl's power, 10 of us from this group were all girls and the task that we had to do were all heavy duties. The wood planks and the vent blocks were actually quite heavy to carry. We divided among ourselves to 2 teams: one team to do the bench and one team to do the plantation. It looked very easy to do gardening stuff but we were all wrong about it. It was a mess while we placing the soil and the plants into the water bottles because all of us don't even have any experience on doing it.
Firstly, we arranged the color arrangement of the bottles accordingly and then we started to move the plants to the bottles. After this is done, we started to hang the plantation on the roof structure of the gazebo. It took some time for us to hang it as it was too heavy, this is the mistake that we made to put too much soil inside the bottles. We then slowly took out some soil from each of the bottle. One of our teammate brought coffee to fertilize the plants. The process is fun because there were few children actually came over to watch us doing our activities, chatting and laughing during the process. One of them volunteered to help us for some simple task.
On the other hand, the team that were doing the bench were arranging the vent blocks. They discussed and decided which spot were to best to place the bench. They mixed up cement with water and sand with the correct proportion, to apply on the vent block for joining them together. While some teammate were applying lacquer and thinner on the wood planks to make them last longer. After the wood planks dried under the strong sun, the wood planks were polished with sand paper in order to make it smoother and this 2 process were repeated 2-3 times to make the wood planks more durable. After all the materials were ready, we started to place the wood planks into the holes of the vent bricks and applied cement to fix the position of it. And Tadaaaaaaa~ It's done!
We started to clean up mess that we made and pack to leave before raining. We threw all the rubbish and then finally it's group photo time before leaving. This was a very nice and precious experience that taught me to contribute to the society and not only work for ourselves. We all had a great and fun time together while doing this community service task, I've learned that actually joyful is everywhere, it's just depends on how you see it with different perspective.
Thank you for all the participation of my teammate to complete this beautiful artwork.
