BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

THE Youth Centre will continue to organise volunteer activities this year under its flagship Jalinan Kasih Belia programme.

Muhd Amirul Syazmie Ibrahim, an officer from the Department of Youth and Sports, said the centre aims to improve its volunteer and community work as well as facilitating training for its volunteers, as it strives to become a youth hub.

The Jalinan Kasih Belia programme was introduced by the department as an effort towards encouraging the youth to be more responsible, compassionate and considerate towards others especially those in need.

The encouragement is done mostly through involvement of the youths in humanitarian activities; regular interaction with, and constantly providing assistance to those in need regardless of race and religion.

The programme is conducted in the month of Ramadhan.

“In the second week, we gather together and bake cakes. We call our volunteers and strategic partners from technical education to help us in baking and packing cakes and biscuits,” Muhd Amirul said.

“We also receive food items from our strategic partners and we pack these items into hampers. These hampers will be distributed to the needy families in the four districts,” he added.

Muhd Amirul said that ten needy families will be selected in each district.

“On week three and four of the Ramadhan month, we will start going to their houses to send the hampers and other donations.”

In addition to donations, the volunteers also do various community work such as repairing and cleaning the homes of the selected families in need.

“We do this once a month to expose our volunteers, including the children of our staff who join us, to show that volunteering does not only mean helping those in need but it also provides an opportunity for the youth to learn something not taught in the school,” said Muhd Amirul.

He said that volunteers benefit from the skills they gained through community work, in addition to the values instilled in them.

“Skills such as repairing houses and cleaning for others can be humbling and many youths have others doing this for them, so such opportunity can teach them something out of their comfort zone,” he added.

There are around 100 volunteers under the Youth Centre, which include alumni of the National Service Programme (PKBN), former participants of the Ship for Southeast Asian and Japanese Youth Programme (SSEAYP) and PROACTIVE (Youth Leadership and Action Initiative) programme.

The Brunei Times