Volunteer
Yourself With Pride
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Datuk Haji Safri Awang
Zaidell
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Must we expect to be rewarded everytime we do something for others?
Is the spirit of volunteerism on the wane? RAKAN Sarawak met up with Datuk
Haji Safri Awang bin Zaidell, a former Deputy State Secretary; past Chairman
of Angkatan Zaman Mansang (AZAM) and former Director of Yayasan Sarawak
who now involves himself in a few voluntary organisation.
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What does volunteerism mean
to you?
I would define volunteerism as when
you do something on your own free will and you like doing it without getting
paid for it. You do something for the benefit of the organisation or the community
without expecting any reward, then you are doing voluntary work. That's my simple
definition.
Volunteerism has always
been equated with gotong royong or working together to help each other. Is this
still the culture today?
The gotong royong culture is still
in existence but there are much more of this gotong royong acvtivities in the
past than there are today especially so in the urban centres. The city is losing
this spirit of gotong royong. It may still be there but there is obviously a
lack of it partly because of business and convenience coming into the picture.
In the 40s and 50s there were plenty of voluntary and co-operative spirit among
the kampong people. Where there's a wedding for example or any ceremony, the
whole community would volunteer to provide all the amenities like pots and pans,
cutlery, plates, cups and so on and these were returned after the function.
The whole ceremony would last up to two weeks and there was no shortage of volunteers
who offered to help out in one way or another.
Let me make it clear that there is
still the spirit of gotong royong today but due to changing circumstances, this
spirit appears to be dwindling. Take teachers for instance, if you ask teachers
to give tuition or extra class to their own students in their own schools, some
would ask to be paid. There are people higher up who would agree with these
teachers citing the reasons that if students were to be taught by the teachers
at their homes and be paid for it, why shouldn't they equally be paid for giving
extra classes at school. But I don't look at it that way. I was a teacher in
primary school, in secondary school and at Teacher Training College. In those
days we looked at it differently. When my students were not good in maths or
any subject, we would get them to come back in the afternoon just so that these
students could improve themselves. The desire to see the students doing well
in school was enough motivation for us to go on giving our services voluntarily.
I hope that kind of motivation is still there today. Of couse there are many
teachers do not have that spirit of volunteerism in them.
What voluntary work do
you do in the community now?
I am a member of the Lembaga Amanah
Kebajikan Muslimin Kampung Patingan (Patingan Muslim Welfare Trust Board). The
surau (village mosque) is the centre of our organisation. I am also the chairman
of the kampong library is about set up withhin the premises of the surau. The
Library is about 3 years old now and we have about 10,000 books in our collection.
The idea is to encourage young and old people of the kampong to get together
and cultivate an interest in reading. Donations of books are most welcome. The
library is managed by DBKU. The project comes under the Village Library Scheme
of the state goverment. It is fully air-conditioned and very comfortable. The
response from the community is most encouraging espeacially from the students
and young people.
I am also involved in the Saberkas
Unit in this kampong. Saberkas was established in the 70s as a consolidated
body of multiracial youth clubs in the country. It is in the interest of the
young people at kampong level to form their own unit of Saberkas so that they
can organise functions for the benefit of the youths in their area on a voluntary
basis. Get the young poeple involved so they will not be led astray and become
victims of social ills.
I am also the chairman of the Education
Committee of the Yayasan Budaya Melayu Sarawak (Sarawak Malay Cultural Foundation)
whose headquarters is at Jalan Haji Taha, Kuching. I was also the Chief Commissioner
of the Scouts movement in Sarawak for 10 years - from 1982 to 1992. I am still
in the Scouts as a lay member, not in uniform. The Scouts have a concrete programme
of action. It is an international organisation. Its has a clear cut training
objectives and programmers etc. At the centre of the training is the principle
of scouting which is loyalty to God, King and Country. I would urge not only
the young but old hands to assist this movement. It is a slightly different
movement from Saberkas and other movement. If you want to give young people
leadership training and qualities, the scouts movement is worth going for. I
am also a member of The Worldwide Fund For Nature (WWF) with its regional headquarters
in Kuala Lumpur. I was the Chairman of Angkatan Zaman Mansang (AZAM) for 15
years since its inception in 1983. I have recently decided to hand over the
leadership of AZAM to Datuk Haji Abduk Aziz Husain, the Depurty State Secretary
for Human Resource. I personally believe that one should not hang on the leadership
for too long should let young and qualified people to take over.
How can civil servants contribute
towards the promotion of volunteerism?
The State Secretary and many other
senior officers are involved in voluntary work. They are in Hikmah, in AZAM,
in Saberkas and so on. They are setting a good example to other civil servants
in voluntary work.
Indeed, encouragement must be given
at all levels to help in voluntary organisations. They are busy people but they
have the time. In fact I think it is the busy people who have the time to be
active in voluntary work. Maybe they are the people who have the 'semangat'
or the spirit to come forward and volunteer. Those who don't do any voluntary
work are perhaps too indifferent to society. Senior Civil servants are in the
best position to help in voluntary bodies. I say this from my personal exprience
as a senior officer. Facilities are plenty, secretaries and staff to help out
and make life easier and get things moving faster. There do have the resources
that they can deploy for charitable work. When one retires from senior goverment
post, one has to do things by oneself with very little help from people.
It is good for pensioners to be involved in voluntary work to keep them occupied
and to pass on the benefit of their exprience in the Civil Services to valuntary
organisations. It is one way of keeping themselves associated with people in
the community. Nothing is worse than being lonely with nothing useful to do.
In what way can the community
be more involved in voluntary work?
The community can organise themselves
within the JKKK or Saberkas or other social organisations with the objective
of contributing towards the progress and development of all concerned. They
have to be organised into a body to get things done and to produce the desired
results. There's nothing better than organised action in the spirit of volunteerism
to help others. It is heartening to note that many civil servants are still
actively involved in voluntary work. Once when I was travelling up country to
Ulu Skrang, I met 2 teachers serving in a remote school. They were perhaps the
only educated people in the area. Imagine the life they led apart from teaching.
These two teachers in the Ulu did almost everything that was needed to be done
not only in the school but also in the community. They involved themselves with
the villagers in social work. They were leaders, the catalyst of development
in that area. This spirit is worth emulating. In the urban areas, there is a
need for voluntary involvement if we want to achieve a clean and healthy enviroment.
There is a lot still to be done to achieve that standard. We can do something
about our kampong. We can turn it into a showpiece or a 'kampong contoh' (model
village).
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