Community Service Semester 3
Saturday, 15 December 2012
Conclusion
I realized that volunteering with our heart is very important. We should not behave like visitors when we signed up to be a volunteer, thinking that we do not get any pay from them so it is not necessary to follow their instruction. It is not honest and decent. We have to leave our ego at the door to be a good volunteer. We must have a positive attitude and try to enjoy ourselves. I applaud the efforts by our lecturers to help to instill in students the importance of community service.
Thursday, 13 December 2012
Voluntary Work at Mawar Renal Medical Centre (29th November – 13th December 2012)
For the individual volunteering work, I decided to
be a volunteer at Mawar Renal Medical Centre (MRMC). MRMC is a division of Pusat
Hemodialisis Mawar. It is a non-profit specialist medical centre that was
established in 2008. The aims of this hospital are to provide hope to the less
fortunate, relieve the suffering of kidney patients and subsidise those poor
and needy patients. I decided to work there as a volunteer because I wish to contribute
what I have learned in class to the community. The objective that I attached to
this hopistal as a volunteer is to inculcate the value of sharing and caring in
myself. It is always nice to help people
who are less fortunate.
Before started working there, I
went for interview and signed an agreement that I will be working there as a
volunteer for 11 days. They arranged me to work at the Pharmacy Department as
it is something related to the course that I am studying and hope that I am
able to help them. I started working at the hospital on 29th of
November. My working period is from 9 am to 1pm on weekdays. Madam Mani, the
manager of the Pharmacy Department explained to me about the history of the
centre and how the pharmacy department operates. She told me to observe and
learn how the assistant pharmcaists pack medication on the first day. She gave
me a file that talks about the procedures for dispensing medications, checking
stock, returning of medications from patients and others. There are two
sections in this department. One of the sections is in charge of the out
patients who come and buy medicine without staying in the hospital whereas
another section is in charge of the in patients who are staying in the
hospital. Most of the patients who cannot afford the medication fees are
assisted by Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia (KKM). I offered to help in both
sections. Every morning, I take out twelve boxes of Recormon syringe and twelve
boxes of Eprex syringe from the freezer in the store and put it inside the
small refrigerator at the dispensary counter. I helped Uncle Chin, who is in
charge of dispensing medication to distribute syringe to all the dialysis
patients. The dialysis patients come at different time to get their syringe
everyday. The injection is administered to renal disease patients on dialysis to
treat anaemia. Besides that, there were a lot of patients especially in the
morning. Thus, I also helped to pack the medication. The patients come to the
pharmacy counter with the prescription from their doctor. After receiving
prescription from the patients, the assistant pharmacist will key in the
medicine and the dosage into the computer. Then, they will print out the label
and another staff will pack the medication according to the labels. So, this is
the procedure in packing medication. It is quite easy but I need to be extra
careful to avoid any mistake when packing the medicine because some of the
drugs have similar name. Moreover, the same drug could have different dosage
and concentration. The labels also must be paste on the medicine plastic bags
correctly. The medicine are arranged according to different category such as
antihistamine, vitamin and mineral, neuromuscular agent, antigout,
anticonvulsant, endocrine system, antiemetics and others. They are not arranged
according to alphabets because they want to prevent medication error. After
packing the medication, I will pass it to any of the assistant pharmacist to
check so that the medicines are correct. If there were no mistakes, the
medication together with the prescription will be passed to Uncle Chin.
Sometimes, I have the chance to prepare syrups, ointment and cream for the
patients. I can apply what I have learned in class to prepare those medications.
I like to make all these medications but I seldom have the chance because most
of the time, the assistant pharmacist will be doing the preparation work, so it
depends on my luck. Other than that, I also need to check the expiry date of
the medication and record it in a record book. Some of the wards or other Mawar
hospital branches and Accident and Emergency (A&E) department will exchange
some of the medication that are going to expire soon with our pharmacy
department. So, I was helping to pack new medication to exchange with them as
well. There will be new stock coming once a week. I helped them to unpack the
ice boxes which contain syringes and ice packs. After that, the syringes will
be arranged into the freezer in the store whereas the ice packs will be put
into freezer of another three refrigerators. Besides syringes, I also helped
them to unpack other medications and those medications will be stored on top of
the racks. This is because their pharmacy store is very small and Madam Mani
told me that they have a plan to build a bigger pharmacy in the hospital.


I was packing the medication according to the prescription and sticking the labels on the syrup box.
The pictures shown are the new arriving medication and
I was helping the clerk to arrange them into the store.
Recormon syringe that I took out from the freezer to give to the patient.
The medication that I helped them to pack into plastic bags.
![]() |
I arranged the plastic bags on the rack. |
Places for the assistant pharmacists to prepare internal medication like syrup.
I visited some of the patients in different wards during my lunch break.
Sometimes, I helped them to buy some foods and drinks while they are having dialysis treatment.
Throughout this community service, I have gained a lot of experience and learned something outside of my own life. I feel very happy because I can help those less fortunate people. Besides gaining volunteering experience, I also learned some valuable life skills such as cooperate with other people and also communication.
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
AMSA IMU-NKF Fundraising Event (26th-27th November)

The National Kidney
Foundation (NKF) fundraising event was held from 26th to 29th
November 2012 at IMU. This event was
organized by AMSA IMU. NKF is a charitable organization where dialysis is
provided. NKF’s patients are generally from the lower income group and these
patients often could not afford dialysis treatments at private medical
facilities which usually charge RM150 to RM250 for each dialysis sessions. NKF
helps by subsidising the cost of the patients’ dialysis treatments, so that
they are only required to pay a RM50 nominal fee per dialysis session. Hence,
all proceeds raised by AMSA IMU through this event will be channeled to NKF in
providing subsidized dialysis treatment for the poor and needy. The objectives
of this community service are to contribute to the community, help them to live
the fulfilling lives that they deserve and learn some skills in organizing an
event.
I registered as a
volunteer and the organiser assigned me to help them on 26th and 27th
of November. There were two booth selling badges, lanyards, foods and drinks,
coin boxes and refrigerator magnets. I helped them to set up the booth by
arranging all the items on the tables, collect money, record the amount of
items sold and count the lanyards. Besides that, I also help to distribute
pamphlets to all the students and lecturers that passed by our booth. Other
than that, they also provided a donation box for people who want to donate
money. Me and some of my coursemates were going around the atrium and
motivating people to donate money to NKF.
I’m tremendously
blessed when I knew that through this event, I rendered to someone less
fortunate and I helped to brighten their day. I am glad that I was given a
chance to contribute to the community. These experiences help me to develop my
ability to cope with difficult and frustrating situations and learn how to
manage time and people to the best of my ability.

Photo taken at the booth at atrium.

Joe Jen and I were distributing the pamphlets to students and lecturers.

Photo taken at the booth at atrium.

Joe Jen and I were distributing the pamphlets to students and lecturers.
Friday, 23 November 2012
Voluntary Work At National Zoo
Voluntary Work at Zoo Negara ( 17/8,
7/11, 9/11, 20/11, 23/11/2012)
At the end of semester 2, Mr. Lim Chee
Siong told us that we have an elective project in semester 3. We were assigned to complete the community
service for 20 days. After discussing
with my coursemates, we decided to complete part of the project in group and
part of the project individually. They are five people in my group including
Jiou Su-Xian, Low Yin Yee, Lam Jun Rong, Wan Hoon Mun and me. We decided to be volunteers
in Zoo Negara after some discussion. We contacted the education officer in the
Zoo Negara and registered as a volunteer. The objective of choosing Zoo Negara
is because we want to expose ourselves to the community-based activities. We
hope to get more volunteering experience as this is the first time we are
involved in community service. Another important reason is because we realized
the importance of conserving wildlife.
Zoo Negara is managed by a
non-governmental organization namely Malaysian Zoological Society. It complies
with the latest guidelines set by the World Association of Zoos and Aquarium
(Waza) and South-East Asian Zoo Association (Seaza) and has increased its
conservation awareness efforts. They are a total of over 5446 specimen from 476
species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. The five pillars that
Zoo Negara stands on are education
to create awareness on wildlife conservation, wildlife conservation by breeding those rare species and releasing them back
into the wild, provide a haven knowledge and experience for researchers, recreation and provide training
in wildlife management for other zoos in Malaysia. We spent a lot of time
working there and we had fun although it was not an easy task. On the first day
of our volunteer service at Zoo Negara, we arrived there at 8am. We were
separated by the zoo officer into two groups. Yin Yee and I worked in pair and
we started our day in the Bear complex. There are several types of bear,
including the Asiatic black bear, brown bear, sloth bear, and Malayan sun bear.
Besides bears, there are different types of animals in this section such as tapir,
kangaroo, deer and goat. We helped an Indian man who is the supervisor of this
section to clean the surrounding area. First, he brought us to a cage that has
many black goats in it. He gave us different task. Yin Yee was instructed by
him to throw the tree trunks outside of the cage to a specific place near the
cage. The specific place is a small empty land that is used to collect rubbish
and animal waste from all departments in the zoo. There are rubbish collectors
that come and collect the rubbish daily and some of the plastic bags that
contain animal stools will be sent to the researchers. On the other hand, I was following him into
the cage to wash the area and clean the animal waste. He asked me to count the
goats and make sure the number of goats is correct in case one of the goats ran
out of the cage. I filled up the water tank with water and fed the black goats
with grasses. Next, we proceeded to another large cage with many deer in it. There
were a lot of dried leaves and tree trunks in the cage so both of us spent
about two hours to sweep all the leaves.
We bagged up all the dried leaves and rubbish and sent the rubbish bags with
a trolley to the specific place that was mentioned earlier. Then, we brought
grasses into the cage again to feed the deer. After that, we had a break for
lunch. When we returned after lunch, the supervisor brought us to a different
cage that has kangaroos in it. We were asked to wash all the containers that
contain food waste. The supervisor brought in a bucket that contains grasses
and vegetables and asked us to pour them into all the containers to feed the
kangaroos. We finished all the work and went home at 4 o’clock in the
afternoon.
After our end of semester exam
in November, we went back to Zoo Negara again for voluntary work. Members from
another group including Tan Joe Jen, Tan Yee Yein and Eugene Ngim Kai Lun
joined us as well. Early in the morning, we arrived at Zoo Negara and waited
for the staff to separate us into different groups. Eugene, Su-Xian and I were
working as a group and we worked at Children’s World department on that day. We
got to work with horses, rabbits, fawns, porcupines and goats which are really
very cute and friendly. Three of us were given a task to sweep and clean the
area. We felt satisfied after sweeping the whole area as the place was much
cleaner than before. After that, we took out a few buckets that contains
vegetables and fruits from a store room and brought the food into different
cage to feed the animals. Next, we proceeded to another place where there are
many rabbits and porcupines. We helped to clean the bunnies’ feces, wash the
container, refill their water container and feed them with carrots. After we
had finished the task given, we went for lunch break. When we returned, one of
the zoo keepers brought us to a place that has many bunny cages. He explained
to us on how to clean the cages. Then, we started our work by raking up the
animal waste and the unwanted grass mats. After we finished cleaning the cages,
we put in new grass mats into all the cages. Bunnies like to rest on grass mats
and these are their habitats. We finished up the task given and went home at 4
o’clock in the afternoon. On the third day, I was working in the same
department with the same partners again. So, the work that we had done in the
morning is basically the same like the previous day. We were sweeping the
squirrel cages as well. Besides that, we were told by a zoo keeper that they
need our help in repairing the old tyres to hang in the monkey cage. Hence, we helped them to remove the screws on
the old tyres and the rubber strap because the old rubber strap was broken and
cannot be used anymore. Then, we used the old tyres and screwed them along a
new rubber strap which is very long and thick. After we had finished screwing
all the tyres, two staff climbed on to the roof of the monkey cage to hang the
new strap of tyres. Three of us helped to push up all the tyres together with
the rubber strip by using a long stick so that they were able to get the rubber
strap and tied it on both side of the roof. The tyres are made for the monkeys
to play with because they like to climb and there were no trees inside the cage
so what they can do is to provide some tyres and make the cage like a playground.
On
the fourth day at Zoo Negara, I was working with Eugene and Su-Xian again. We
were arranged by the staff to work in Mammal Kingdom department. The Mammal
Kingdom is full of nocturnal animals. It is a home to leopard cats, slow loris,
Malay civet, pumas, leopards, raccoons, striped hyenas and Binturong. There are
capybara and Malayan porcupine as well. This is the department that I like the
most because we were feeding the animals most of the time. We followed a Malay
man who is a zoo keeper that is in charge of the department to his office. We
changed our boots and started our day by sweeping the surrounding area. Next,
the Malay zoo keeper separated us as there are two sections in that department.
Eugene and Su-Xian went to another section to help another zoo keeper to clean
the cages while I was following the Malay zoo keeper to wash the cages around
this section. I helped him to wash all the raccoon cages. Besides that, I also
cleaned their food container and swept the animal waste inside the cage under
his supervision. We cannot wash the cages alone because raccoons are quite
aggressive and they might attack us. Next, the three of us proceeded to another
pademelon’s cage to sweep the dried leaves and rake up the animal waste. After finishing
our task, we had our lunch break. We were given two buckets of foods. One of
the buckets contains small fishes whereas another bucket contains many packets
of bread. First, a zoo keeper brought us to feed the otters. We brought the bucket with small fishes in it and threw them
one by one into the big aquarium with many otters in it. The otters are very
smart and they can catch the fishes that we threw towards them. We enjoyed
throwing fishes to them and observing the way they eat. Next, we brought the
bucket that filled with bread to the raccoons’ cage. We were standing outside
the cage to feed the raccoons. It was
such a nice and memorable experience for us.
On
the fifth day which is the last day for me to be a volunteer at Zoo Negara,
there were only five of us including Joe Jen, Yin Yee, Su-Xian, Eugene and I
who went to the zoo. This time, we got to work together as a group. Early in
the morning, the staff separated all the volunteers into different department.
There were volunteers from other secondary school that came on that day. The
staff arranged us to work at Bear Complex. This was the second time I was
working in this section. In the morning, we started our day by raking up the
animal waste in the tapir’s cage and washing the cage. Then, Su-Xian and I
threw the rubbish bags to the empty land while the other three people were
sweeping inside the cage. After that, Su-Xian and I were following the
supervisor to the bears’ cages. We were instructed by the supervisor to wash
the food containers. After that, we had lunch break. We did not help much on
that day because it was raining cats and dogs after our lunch break. However,
the zoo keeper asked us to sweep inside the deer’s cage before we go back.
Although it was still raining, we still obeyed what the zoo keeper told us to
do because we knew that he needed our help. We followed him into the cage and
sweep as quickly as we can for about half an hour. We went home at 4 o’clock in
the afternoon.
Here are some of the photos taken during the community service in National Zoo.
I was pushing the wheelbarrow
to another
cage.
Yin Yee and I were sweeping inside the deer's cage.

My group members : (from left) Jun Rong, Su-Xian, Yin Yee and Hoon Mun.

My group members : (from left) Jun Rong, Su-Xian, Yin Yee and Hoon Mun.
Day 2 & 3 (7th and
9th of November 2012)
Su-Xian and I were screwing the tyres on the rubber strap.
We were cleaning the squirrel's cage.
![]() |
Photos taken at the Children's World after we had our lunch break. |
![]() | |
Photos taken inside the monkey's cage when we were helping the zoo keeper to hang the rubber strap. |
![]() |
I was sweeping around the monkey’s cage. |
We were cleaning the squirrel's cage.
Day 4 ( 20th November
2012)
Pademelon
We brought the vegetables to feed the porcupines.
Racoon
I was feeding the racoon with bread.
Su-Xian, Eugene and I were feeding the otters with small fishes.
Our zoo keeper of the day who is quite friendly.
![]() Su-Xian and I were sweeping inside the pademelon's cage. |
![]() Photos taken while I was sweeping the dried leaves. |
We brought the vegetables to feed the porcupines.
Racoon
I was feeding the racoon with bread.
Su-Xian, Eugene and I were feeding the otters with small fishes.
Day 5 (23rd November
2012)

Photos taken inside the deer's cage before we started cleaning.
We were feeding the deer with grasses.
I got a certificate that proved that I worked as a volunteer in National Zoo for 40 hours.

Photos taken inside the deer's cage before we started cleaning.
We were feeding the deer with grasses.
I got a certificate that proved that I worked as a volunteer in National Zoo for 40 hours.
That was my experience of being a volunteer in Zoo Negara. It is a memorable experience that I will never forget. I believe that we have made a difference in the lives of the Zoo animals. It is a good opportunity to get hands-on about helping wildlife. I get to appreciate the challenges of operating and managing a wildlife facility. I was also exposed to a wide range of experiences, people and situations that I would not usually encounter in my student life. It is a process of giving of ourselves for the benefit of others.
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