The community engagement I have chosen was project colours. As a sister with two younger siblings, I enjoy interacting and working with children. I have never had the chance to interact with special needs children and this was the main reason I chose project colours.

I hoped to learn more about them, show support and even help them build skills like how I do for my younger siblings. When I first went for the briefing with project colours, a video of one of the students yelling was shown as the leaders prepare us on how to deal with such situations. I left the briefing feeling slightly anxious but very thankful for the briefing the leaders provided us with.

At my first volunteering session at Rainbow Centre, I was assigned to junior class. When I went into class, the students were each at their own desk working on an activity. Some were working hard on finishing it, some had their attention elsewhere. I went up to one of the students and tried working on the activity with him to which he responded and proceeded to put down the answer. The first interaction I had was heart-warming. There were also difficult moments where it was not easy to get the students attention.

After a few sessions with the class, I got to understand the students and their different needs better. The most fulfilling part is the satisfaction and happiness as I see them improve over time in the smallest thing such as being able to follow a new exercise or doing better at the puzzle activity. Social consciousness to me was being aware of all the different people and issues in the society while civil responsibility was showing respect and support despite the differences. Before I worked with the students at Rainbow Centre, I perceived interactions with them to be difficult as their behaviour change may be unexpected which made me anxious. After working with them, I realised that it was not difficult at all. In addition, I even felt really comfortable with them. They all have their own ideas and interests which were really fun to learn.

One of my weakness before volunteering was having the mindset that interactions with different people in the society is difficult, as such not putting in the effort to get to know them. After working with the students, I hope to create an inclusive community and strongly recommend everyone to get the chance to interact and work with special needs students. To help these students learn skills to function in the community and letting them know that they belong. As an individual, I became more open and want to learn more about the different parts of my community. Social responsibility to me now is reaching out my hand to anyone who needs it and working towards an inclusive community.

As the other members in project colours work on the fund raising event and having my friends and family support the event was really heart-warming. Working together as a community does make a real difference!