To encourage Malay youths to be active in Volunteerism
INTRODUCTION
Volunteerism may be defined as contributing one’s time or talent for charitable, educational, social, political, or other worthwhile purposes, usually in one’s community, freely and without regards for compensation. The United Nation defined youth as those persons between the age of 15 and 24 years.
It is certainly admirable for young people to take active parts in voluntary work. Youths who involve themselves in voluntary work can develop valuable skills and a sense of responsibility that will stand them in good stead when come the time for them to enter the working world. But perhaps, more important, it is the opportunity for these young people to develop empathy and a sense of compassion for those less unfortunate. Perhaps, for these future leaders and citizens, developing compassion is the most paramount and most essential benefit of the voluntary work.
There are many Non-governmental and voluntary organizations in the country that need volunteers so that these organizations can run and function effectively. These organizations are run on public and private donations and are non-profitable. There are many organizations in Malaysia that youths can choose to help, e.g. the disabled home, the home for the aged, orphanage and also the animals. Some of the popular non-governmental and voluntary organizations are Mercy Malaysia, Yayasan Salam, Pemadam, Penyayang, St John Ambulance and Sahabat Alam Malaysia, to name a few.
We are aware that the numbers, as well as percentage wise, of Malays, particularly its youths, involvement in undesirable activities such as drugs abuse, loafing, petty thefts, etc are very high. While their participations in good social activities are rather pathetic as compared to the other ethnic groups. Is there a correlation between the social problems of Malay youths and the lack of them involving in social work, especially volunteering ?
Though there is no proper or official survey to confirm, through general observations and talk with people who are involved in voluntary work, we noticed that Malay youth involvement in voluntary work does not reflect Malay being the majority race of the country. Their contribution to society through voluntary work is very small or negligible, should we say, when compared with the other races in term of percentage. The lack of participation of Malay youth in voluntary work is a problem which must not be taken lightly. This rather unfortunate situation requires a thorough and objective analysis. We certainly need to find out what are the causes.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss ways on how to encourage more Malay youths to be active in doing voluntary work. With this study we hope we are able to find the causes and to reverse the unhealthy situation and at the same time eradicate the social ills that they are causing to society such as drug abuse, illegal motor race (mat rempit), loafing around (lepak) and free sex activity which lead to teenage pregnancy.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
We have established five (5) objectives in our research work.
1. To find out why there is very little involvement of Malay youths in voluntary work in voluntary societies or organizations in the country.
2. To encourage and divert the youths from getting involved in anti-social activities such as drug abuse, illegal motor race and loafing around.
3. To enhance the spirit of volunteerism and patriotism through strengthening the leadership and provide self-development program for this youth so that they can further develop more youth groups which will keep them active and thus lure them away from undesirable activities.
4. To get the involvement of major Malay political parties to provide infrastructure and develop programmes for these youths to be more active in voluntary and charity work so that they can contribute to the society, not just to their ethnic group but also to the nation.
5. To encourage Malay youths to be actively involved in voluntary and charity work and other beneficial social activity.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS.
To achieve the above five objectives, we posed five questions related to the objectives:
1. Why do Malay youths do not like to do voluntary work to help the less fortunate in society.
2. Why do Malay youths are easily influence and get involved in undesirable activities such as drug abuse, illegal motor racing, loafing around and sex.
3. Why do institutions of learning such as schools and colleges and government agencies fail to produce, encourage and develop the sense of helping the less fortunate among our youth, particularly the Malays.
4. Why is there lack of programs and activities organised by major Malay political parties to encourage Malay youth in volunteerism.
5. How can we encourage more Malay youths to get involved in voluntary work.
Why Malay youth not active in voluntary work.
Volunteerism is not new to the Malay society. Cooperation among the village folks and youth alike and the spirit of helping one another were once the hallmark of the rural Malay society and it is called ‘gotong royong’. However, such good practices that had once characterized the Malay society, whether rural or urban, are disappearing fast. Why this happen ? From our research through books, newspapers and the internet, there are several factors why these youths are not interested.
First and foremost there is change of values. Children learn from adults. The Malays, most of them were once a simple kampong folks. Many are now living in urban areas. They are now busy working, either employed or working on their own to earn a living. In this current world, money is the push factor. So both parents are busy working and has no time for social work. It is worst for poor families, the majority of them are Malays. We have become materialistic. Time constraint and the will to survive in such a fast-paced society have made it difficult for them to offer their time and effort without any material return. Parents are always their children role models. Under these circumstances, the children when they grow up as youth, would not understand the importance of working without compensation.
The rural Malay youth values are also being aggressively transformed. The advancement of communication technology such as the internet and televisions, are exposing these youth to negative elements as fast as their cousins in the urban. These youth are also as materialistic as those in the urban because they now share the same needs.
The society is also to be blame for the lack of interest in voluntary work. The youth success is now no longer measured on what they have contributed to the society but more of their academic excellence. It is now the number of A’s that they scored in the examination. They are pushed not only by the parents but also the school to perform well, leaving them with no time to be active in social activities. Uniformed groups such as the Red Crescent Society, St John Ambulance, the Boys Scout or the Girl’s Guide, which provide good leadership training and helping the communities, are no longer the choices of the students. Instead, these students will be busy attending tuitions, leaving them not much time to socialize. The government has to share the blame too because of this emphasis when awarding scholarship. Since the majority of Malay parents could not afford to send their children to study overseas with their own money, they have to push their children to study hard and excel to qualify for the scholarship. Other aspects of the child development were neglected. The child grow up as one who is individualistic because he saw that he has to fight against the other to get the scholarship.
Involvement of Malay Youth in Undesirable Activities
It is undisputed fact that the social problems of Malay youth in the country is the most when compared to the other races. Most of the juvenile crimes are commited by the Malay youth. Almost all the social ills – drug abuses, illegal motor racing (mat rempit), loafing (lepak) and pre-marital sex – the Malays are the champions. We seldom heard of illegal motor racing or loafing being committed by the other ethnic communities in Malaysia. Somehow we are the undisputed champion, for the wrong reasons. What are the causes for the high incidents of social ills among Malay youths.
A survey was conducted by the Ministry of Youth and Sport together with the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in 1990’s on loafing among secondary school students. The survey reported that only 6 % of Malay students would go home straight after school. That means, 94 % would go loafing elsewhere. Among the Chinese, 90% would go home, while the Indian, 70 % would go home. Consequently delinquent problems among the Malays are the highest. Another reason why the students loaf is because parents could not care less. This is particularly true among the lower income group. Both parents are busy working and could not give full attention to their children upbringing. Their small homes also make these students prefer to be out of their home. The attraction of modern amenities like shopping complex, snooker centre, video game arcades are just too attractive the Malay students who came from rural areas. With little education they are attracted to towns. They are unable to adjust with the new environment and got themselves involved with bad elements.
According to Datuk Idris Ibrahim, former Chairman of Anti-Dadah Kebangsaan, Malay youths are easily influenced, like to enjoy and like to try something new. These youth would eventually get entangled with friends who are drug addicts or mat rempit due to their low self esteem. They do not have strong will power to avoid the bad companies that they are mixing with. Hence we find that Malay constitute 68 % of the nation’s drug addict in 2005 and 76 % of them are youth.
Associate Professor Dr Samsilah Ruslan, a lecturer from Universiti Putra Malaysia reported in Kosmo paper her finding of a survey done by her on Malay drug addicts. She said that most of the addicts’ parent lack parenting skill. They came from lower-income group and the addicts are mostly with low educational qualification.
Don’t you cringe when you hear stories of newborns being abandoned at rubbish dumps or worse, die from the ordeal ? On 8th of May 2009, Kosmo newspaper reported of religious school student who dumped her newborn at rubbish dumps. These stories you get from newspaper from time to time make you wonder what has happened to our youth today. Can we just put the blame solely on the young. I think many parents have failed in their role to teach the right value to their children. The parents also have failed in monitoring the activities of their own children.
With all the social problems that our youth facing, it is obvious that they would not have the time to participate in any voluntary work. For that matter, they may have never heard about it.
School, Colleges and Government Agencies
The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Youth and Sports are two ministries that are supposed to guide our young who are going to be the future leaders of the country. Have they played their role rightly in bringing out the most in these youth potential.
The current school system does not fully exploit the potential in our youth. Too much emphasis is being made on academic achievement of students instead of moulding student characters. Although co-curriculum activities are encouraged, they are seldom place as important. As a result not many students involved in uniformed groups or societies. Teachers and school principals were also rewarded if they can produced high number of students with straight A’s. This is not going to help to develop full potential of students to become future leaders of the nation.
The government introduced National Service Training programme for Malaysian youth aged 17 years in 2003. The youth will undergo 3 months training. The training is to encourage inter-ethnic relationship. Another important objective of the programme is to instil spirit of caring and volunteerism in society. After undergoing 11 or 12 years of schooling, the 3 months training is too short to achieve the objective. The spirit of caring and volunteerism should be introduced early in school and not at later stage of their live.
Malay political parties Youth program and NGO
The two major Malay political parties in the country are the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) and Pan- Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS). Both parties have youth wings. The problems with these political parties is that their youth age is 15 to 40 years old. Hence you find that most of their activities are not so relevant to youth below 21 but more of those above 21. Understandably, this is because those above 21 are able to vote and will affect the party performance in any election. This shows that these parties themselves fail to foresee the importance of the younger group development and how they would be able to shape the future of this country.
Most of our non-government organizations which are supposed to be youth organizations in nature, are very much politically inclined. Groups like Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM) and Gabungan Pelajar-Pelajar Melayu Semenanjung (GPMS) are very much involved in politics. They should also balanced their activities to train our youth in social work and leadership training towards social activities.
Getting Malay Youth Involved in Volunteerism
The lack of participation of Malay youth in voluntary works is a problem which must not be taken lightly. We have said this earlier in our essay. Then how can we encourage our youth to participate actively in voluntary work so that it can benefit the community as a whole.
Voluntary works are done during our spare time. As adults, have we given our fair share of our spare time for voluntary works ? The adults should be the role model for the youth. We have to evaluate ourselves before we point our fingers at these youths. There is an old saying that ‘charity begins at home’. Shaping up a society must really begin at our own very home. Every parent is responsible to his society. This can only be achieved through good parenting and proper religious education. From the small confinement of the home, the children will grow up into youth and would be responsible enough and sufficiently sensitive towards the needs of his community. And from the confinement of these small communities, the spirit of volunteering would continue to be practiced within the society at large.
The education system also has to be more holistic. It should not just concentrate on academic excellence alone. The students should also be encouraged to get involved in social activities. They should be encouraged to join societies and make them compulsory. They should be exposed to volunteerism at a very young age. They should know at young age that this life will be more meaningful if we also contribute for the wellbeing of others. Scholarships should only be considered to those who has contributed their time in social works, in addition to academic excellence. Academic excellence alone is not sufficient. The Ministry of Education should also rewarded school in the same manner. Teachers and principals are to instill in students noble character to be quite concerned about others, and not just academic success. The Institute of Higher Learning should make it compulsory for its undergraduate to undergo social work courses as a condition to obtain their degree.
Youths who are involved in undesirable social activities are not solely to be blame. Their parents and society are also partly responsible for the youth failure. To overcome this, parents should also be encouraged to attend parenting courses. For those who come from lower income group, the Ministry of Social Welfare and Women should consider have proper social programme for this group.
The political parties can do much more than what they are doing at the moment. They do have classes for pre-school children like KEMAS and TASKI, two kindergartens initiated by them. They should consider extending this education program for secondary school students. It could be in the form of tuition centre and religious class for them. These will not only help these students to better their study and perform well in the studies, but also provide them opportunity to get higher education as well as mould their characters according to Islamic values, which is the religion of the Malays.
The non-governmental organizations should also expand their activities beyond politics. Politics should only be their minor activities. They should encouraged youth to join their organization and to actively pursue social activities which could help the society that they are serving.
CONCLUSION
It is not difficult to correct this shortcoming of the Malay youth. Volunteerism has been there in our Malay society. It just need a fresh gearing up and a thorough understanding of the changing world we are living in. Even Islam stresses of love and giving helps to others. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) has shown to the Muslims how he had helped his non-Muslim neighbours when they were having troubles. Thus helping others in the form of participation in voluntary works is Islamic in nature, and yet universal in its application.
