Banner designed by @cikpahcomel

On the 24th of January, a group consisting of myself and 9 other fabulous ladies organized our very first event at SMK Yaacob Latif for their Form 5 Art stream students. I had talked about this event a while back when we were still trying to figure out our budget and planning.

Now that we're done with the event (and after getting a few days to rest our bodies), I think it's a perfect time to share on the things that happen and to reflect on it. What exactly happened at the event I'll let both @nanawawa and @cikpahcomel tell that (if they decide to, of course).So let's get that started, shall we?

1. These Kids Are Sporting As Hell (If You Earned It)

One of the biggest worries we had before organizing the event was the question "Will the kids participate or will they lompat pagar the moment they get the chance?". This is especially so with art students. Based on my own experience as an art student, a lot of times they tend to just nope out of events like these. Thankfully, this wasn't the case for these kids.

I think the two pictures above really show how a simple change of approach can increase their participation. One of the main things we wanted to ensure that this was not going to be a classroom setting event and I think they really enjoyed it. We had to ensure that the kids were comfortable with us first. A joke and a game here and we went from "Not another workshop..." faces to all smiles.

2. When Getting Sponsors, Go Beyond

One of the requirements for our project as set by our lecturer was to try our hardest not to take out a single cent from our own wallets to pay for the event. This would prove to be an extremely difficult thing to do for two weeks.

When we initially planned our event, we aimed to go to three different bodies for monetary sponsorship. Practically all three of them did not provide us monetary sponsorship in the slightest. It was much easier for us to get all the other forms of sponsorship like the vouchers from Dominos and the gift bags from MaGIC but when it comes to money, that took a lot of creative thinking. Which is where SteemIt came in...

That very post and all its payout was used to fund our project. Around RM 500 (USD 125) was earned via that single post and we used every cent we earned to fund the event. This was thanks to @perennial who had advised me to create that post in the first place. That is also why you can see the #steem-cartoon tag being printed on our banner. That's our form of thanks to the community that helped us out. You guys are awesome as always =D

Take note any future event organizers. SteemIt may be a good way to fund your event without going through the growing pains of seeing every person involved and getting a "Sorry, we can't allocate any money to you" response. Hoping my juniors will do the same with their events later. Moving on...

3. Things That May Go Wrong, Will Go Wrong So Be Prepared

This was one of the few photos that my groupmates took of me during the event and there's a very good reason why: my job was the mobile runner and photographer, which meant that whatever need attention and solving, I was one of the girls on call.

When we planned the event, we had two different schedules - one for if the activity finished on time, one if delays popped up. A lot of times, we had a few delays. Things happen that we tend not to foresee happened. From people arriving late to the kids struggling with some of the material presented to even traffic jams. When an event is running, you need to be prepared to handle and adapt to all of it.

4. It's About Them In The End

I won't lie, we worked on this event because our grades were depending on it. We wouldn't have started working on this if our lecturer did not make it an assignment. We wouldn't be doing this event if the theme was something else besides "Edutainment".

But in the end, that didn't become the case.

While it may mean a rise or fall of the GPA, it may mean something else for these kids. The little change starts being noticeable little by little. It becomes something else when a kid says he didn't like art stream because he thought he had no other future and changed his response after to looking forward to pursuing arts later as a career. It becomes something when you see them getting so excited and into the activities and there is this spirit that comes from them.

So you start fighting for it and you start putting your all. I suppose this became a case of assignment turned passion project.

5. Your Body Will Ache But It's Damned Worth It

Our bodies all ached after this event. Never have I ever ran up and down 4 storeys of stairs that many times in my life that day. We were all so tired and drained from the end of the day that after a good warm shower, it was lights out for a good 3 - 6 hours for all of us.

And you know what? I'd do it all over again. While my body was drained, my heart was on fire. Right after the event, I was already thinking "Okay, when's the next event? Lemme go at it" I was ready to jump into the next endeavour. I already wanted to do more change for the better.

Let's see if the invasion continues. Until then...

See You Next Post!