What will you do if your parents tell you that they can't support you any further financially and that you would have to miss the chance to further your studies?Is it possible for you to support yourself? It will be tough, really REALLY TOUGH.
Project One & Only came up with a segment which gave the Top20 contestants a chance to voice out our opinions on what we would like to accomplish to make a change in our country or at least help out charity-wise.
I have always believed that education plays an important role in a person's life. It is sad to see one's dream taken away just because money gets in the way. I don't come from a wealthy family but with the support from relatives, I am now doing my tertiary studies at Tunku Abdul Rahman College.
What I would like to accomplish is to give a chance to needy youths who needs monetary support in order to continue on in their education. Through Project O&O's task, I am proposing an idea to make this all happen.
Read all about it below and leave me a comment if you think that there are some flaws which I need to attend to. I really do appreciate your comments.
After accomplishing this task, there will be another task coming which will most probably be an online auction for the cause we have just proposed. I'll be needing as much support that I can get. I hope to make this a success.
Do support me if you think that I deserve to be your Youth Ambassador.
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QUESTION:
Tell us about an event that you'd like to do sometime in the month of March 2011. This event has to relate to the cause you believe in.
Guidelines:
1. The event should fall within the scope of environmental (eg. tree planting)/ social (eg youth related)/ charity (eg blood donation).
2. The event should reach out to the public as widely possible - in terms of physical presence, and news to the media to inspire the society.
Areas to cover:
1. Why do you choose that cause.
2. Why do you think that event can help the cause.
3. What kind of assistance will you need to run that cause, and how will you get them.
4. What are the ways you will spread the news out to convince both your friends & the public to take part in the event.
5. What are the risks/ obstacles involved in running this event. And how will you overcome them.
DYLAN'S ANSWER:
The event which I would like to proceed with is some how related to what I am going through. The event is to promote awareness towards the public which tells them about how youths these days are obstructed to fulfill their dreams of getting an education just because one has insufficient money.
I also plan to build up a new cause/charity to help youths to get their education and also fulfill their dreams, because as far as I am concerned, there is not a specific cause available now which serves the purpose of helping needy youths. Even if there are other organizations out there who offer monetary help to students but I feel that the procedures and requirements are too much of a hassle and too high for some.
The reason I choose to have this cause is because many youths out there are struggling with the need to pay a huge amount of money just to complete their studies. Many have stopped studying and have not entered the tertiary level of education just because the family could not give monetary support. However, this kind of situation does not only appear when students’ wants to enter tertiary level, it is happening even right from the early stages. Pre-school, primary and secondary levels.
So where does one go when one if faced with such of a dilemma. They eventually stop studying and go straight into working life. Why not seek help from available organizations to get loans or even scholarships? We all know how much hassle it is to apply for a study loan, even if you succeed, the amount given will not be sufficient.
The event will help the cause in many ways. First off, it will create awareness to the public telling them that this problem of youths not getting a chance to complete their education stages is indeed happening in our country. I am quite certain that many of us are not aware of this problem because we might think that this matter is not as important as other social problems out there.
However, my cause is just as important as any other cause out there. Why would you want to crush a person’s dream of being a doctor, engineer, accountant, business person, architect, scientist, reporter, journalist, broadcaster, graphic artist, fashion designer and many other wonderful occupations just because one cannot afford the tuition fees and living expenses?
Besides creating awareness, I also wish to tell people that it is not only the low-income families that can’t afford to send their child to school but also the middle-income families. Why is this so? It takes thousands for one to complete their diploma which includes tuition fees and living expenses.
A number of organizations are offering help but the help offered isn’t enough to cover for everything. They are only covering for tuition fees and not the living expenses. So to me, these kinds of loans are just not enough.
In order to make this cause come true and succeed, I will of course need the help and assistance of every single person available. The event will probably be run in a few stages. However, to give it a rough cut, I’ll divide it into ‘short-term’ and ‘long-term’.
During the short-term stages, would like to achieve the goal of successfully creating awareness to the public about the issue. With this I would seek help from the people having any access to the media.
I would probably start off with seeking help from the bloggers. The social media has been successful over these past few years. Many of us are somehow connected directly or indirectly towards social media. Having bloggers help to blog about the event will certainly boost awareness to users of the internet.
Then I would probably approach the media and press to tell them about the event and cause. This will then target the people who are used to the common media.
Besides getting help from the media, getting support from various schools and education organizations is very important as well. This would probably be the ‘long-term’ goal.
Approaching different schools and telling them about the cause will indeed help to spread the message across. My cause could be made available to students studying in that school.
The fastest way to spread a message across is by the word of mouth. Having the public create a buzz about the cause will indeed boost its awareness. To achieve this, I would have to be successful in conveying the message across to people during the early stages of this project when I am spreading the news.
If I am able to create a buzz through social media and also the common media, I am sure that people would have the thought of taking part in this campaign of mine, which is why the media plays a very important. Most people often get influenced by the media, so if I can get the media to write about my cause, then I have played my role.
Of course risks and obstacles cannot be avoided. One of the main risks involved is to have the public not support or even shun the whole event; Mainly because they are not convinced that this cause will work. Some might think that there are better causes out there to support. How I would overcome this is by planning out the whole event to be as detailed as possible with statistics of youths not getting to further their studies and maybe some interviews from the public on their thoughts.
Having done so, if I’ve given out as much explanation needed to convey my message across and the public still is unsure, then I do not think that the problem lays in my hands.
One of the other risks involved is that the media and other organizations will not accept my proposal to the cause. If this is so, then I would probably start small and slightly slower to prove to them that I am capable of achieving my goals even if I am by myself, in the hopes of them seeing the need for this cause to be put to the next stage to receive a bigger attention.
Achieving such a goal is never easy but it is not impossible. My wish for now is to be successful in what I’m doing and with that be able to help other people too.
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You can find my proposal in Project O&O's Facebook Page as well as proposal's from the other contestants.
My #PONO Jouney: I'm in the Semi-Finals! | Top20 Photoshoot
Related links: Project O&O Facebook | Project O&O Twitter | Official Website | Get Twitter updates from #PONO
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