Saturday, August 07, 2004

 
Kalsom X

Anyone interested in helping a group of students from a rural area with their studies, and perhaps life? If you do, the Kalsom Project might just be the thing for you. Held by the United Kingdoms Executive Council for Malaysian students (UKEC), this will be the 10th project of its kind. This year, Kalsom X will be held in Besut for the students from Sekolah Menengah Tengku Mahmud. UKEC is still looking for facilitators, so if you're feeling up to the challenge and gonna be free from 21st to 26th August, regardless of where you are studying (or studied) whether it's in the UK or other parts of the world or even locally, do drop me a line, as soon as possible. Transport from KL, accomodation and food will be catered. All you have to do is be there, inspire the kids and go home feeling good that you've done something for the nation. Like the famous saying, "Ask not what the country has done for you, but what you have done for the country"


OK, enough with the promo. A bit on the history of Kalsom project and UKEC's background..

UKEC was formed back in the 80's by Adlan Benan (Ben, somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he's from batch 8589->hey that's our generation), a budak koleq well-known for debating, not only in good old Kuala Kangsar, but also England. At that time, he felt the need to gather all the invidual Malaysian societies of the universities in the UK under one big umbrella, so that everyone can fight for the same cause while threading the same path, especially when dealing with the government (MSD and High Comm in the UK). Hence UKEC was formed. From Ben, the presidency was passed down to several budak koleq, including one of them Rafizi Ramli (Rough - 9094), Carey Award receipient, who was the longest serving member of UKEC ever. During their time, UKEC was the bomb; it's committee members were brilliant and committed, the member societies participated actively and the government saw the body as the spokesperson for Malaysian students there. Among its famous project are the Alternative prospectus and Kalsom Project. Alternative serves the same purpose like any other prospectusses distributed by the British Council during the British Education Fayre, except that Alternative is written by the respective Malaysian Societies themselves. In other words, it would be what the prospective students would expect to find out about the university they might wanna spend 3 to 5 more years at, not to forget while being thousands of miles away from home.
And then there was Kalsom. Started in 1994, it was held by a group of students who came back for their summer holiday in order to help a single mother, Puan Kalsom (where the name of the project was adopted) from Pahang, raising her 4 children. The project made such an impact that it was in the news and later was made annual with the UKEC reps coming back each year to various rural areas to inspire the needy kids both in their studies and life. A charity dinner which helps to fund the project is also held annually (supposedly, I'll explain why in a bit) in the UK. The dinner, named Kalsom Night, with a talent show running at the same time was once one of the most looked-forward event among students in the UK.
Not being racist (or maybe schoolist is a better way to describe what i mean), but ever since the last budak koleq stepped down as a president, UKEC has not been meeting people's expectation. Alternative was scraped and even Kalsom almost went down with it. Its committee members not only were unrespected, but some even crave for respect in a more demanding manner. A few months before election for the next committee comes up, we could see the current committee persuading friends and juniors to run for the posts instead of the candidates putting up their own campaigns. The reputation was completely tarnished. The only thing I would say kept alive were the AGMs. Yet, instead of seeing this side of the calamity, people would rather associate koleq's involvement in UKEC by accusing the body as an underling of Keadilan in the UK (I heard this myself during the last AGM). I took no offense though since it is true that some of the UKEC leaders did join the party, but isn't it rather foolish to come up with such idea?(and as a famous writer among many of us once wrote, it is dangerous to reason with foolish people) Furtunately, the current committee, with Nik Nazmi (Budu - 9599) being one of them, is drafting a well-planned strategy in reviving the body. Last year, we've seen a number of activities being carried, including the primiering of the UKEC Games. Soon to come is the Kalsom Project and the rebirth of Alternative during the coming British Education Fayre. Kudos to Budu and his colleagues! Hopefully the next committee will continue this great effort and may it come one day when UKEC will once again be in the safe hands of a budak koleq. InsyaAllah...

p/s: i know someone registered in hanoverianapostates.com who knows UKEC better than anyone else. hopefully you'll leave some comments and corrections to what i wrote if you read this. thnx mate!

posted by bYn 4:18 AM