KL DiverseCity has been working tirelessly with bringing the arts scene to the people living in low cost residences such as the residence living in the PPR Flats. They have been working with the committee members to organise activities to bring the positive impact that the arts have to those who are living in such residences.
One of the team members behind such activities is an intern by the name of Allia Binti Huzir. She has started working with KL DiverseCity as an intern since May 2019 and has already been involved with the activities in the PPR Flats. Since the beginning of her internship, she has been involved with multiple programmes. Examples of the activities that she mentioned were for the children with the PPR Flats in two locations, Seri Tioman and Batu Muda. The first activity is a dance class and the second activity is a colouring class.
Allia’s motivation for being involved in this work comes for her own desire to learn and better herself and also her own love for working for events. She says it is a great opportunity to be able to learn and improve her social skills and self-confidence. “What actually motivates me is when I wake up, I know that I am going to learn or experience something new everyday and I love the challenge.”
Of course, in organising activities such as there, there are bound to be a few challenges. For Allia, the biggest challenge that she faced was with the communication between her and the PPR Flats committee members. She recalls instance where communication issues within the PPR Flats committee members has effected finalisation of plans. “For example, I needed a date for this programme we were doing for the Tulip movement. To get that date, it was so hard”.
Through this process of working on the projects, Allia has mentioned that she has learnt several things. She mentions that one major aspect that she took away from this is communication skills. Working with the community, there is a need for constant and meaningful communication between her and the residence of the PPR flats whereby she says was challenging at first. She recalls that having to adapt herself to communicate in Malay was something the needed to get accustomed to. “I’m not so good with Malay and it was quite hard for me to interact with Malay people actually. It was really awkward. They spoke so fast and most of them had their own slang”. While carrying out the activities, she had to learn how to communicate with the children and understand their wants and needs throughout the period of the activities.
Another thing that she took away from her time as an intern is planning and organising her work. The time spent on helping with organising the event has left its mark on her. It was challenge for her as there was the need to be able to keep track of the plans that she had together with having to contact the residents who are involved and the people who would come to teach in the classes. “I’m more organised now”, she says.