| Azaraimy HH |
PARTICIPANTS of the government’s Executive Development Programme for Middle Management Officers organised a fundraising charity sale at Bandarku Ceria yesterday.
The group comprised officers from several government ministries and departments.
The sale included a ‘Youth for Society’ activity, part of the group’s community outreach programme.
According to Zailina binti Abang Haji Amarzuki, one of the group members of the Executive Development Programme, the charity sale received good public response since they first held it at Bandarku Ceria last week. She added that the group hopes to distribute the proceeds to underprivileged families.
“We are bringing the youth into the activity (Youth for Society), including volunteers and graduates, and we want to influence the youth to help others to develop their characters and soft skills,” she said.
“We targetted unemployed youth to provide experience doing charity work.” She added that the activity may benefit the youth for job hunting. Their experience and skills dealing with people will enhance their marketability as jobseekers.
“We give the youth appreciation certificates for participating in the activity. This will also help them enhance their resume,” Zailina said.
“Apart from that we also want to help the Brunei Council on Social Welfare (MKM), one of the charity non-governmental organisations in Brunei, by helping raise money to help families registered under them. There are about 200 families registered under MKM, and we will give the donations to families under this list.”
Youth for Society is one of the charity volunteer groups formed under the Community Outreach Activity (COA) module of the 26th Executive Development Programme for the Middle Management Officers (26th EDPMMO) conducted by Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB).
A project organised by five middle management officers from different government agencies with the assistance of 10 youth volunteers, Youth for Society’s objective is to help develop the character and soft skills of Brunei’s youth by encouraging them to get involved in volunteerism and carry out charitable deeds through partaking in MKM’s activities to help the needy.
The group seeks to grow by recruiting new members through a “bring-a-friend” approach and organising youth activities to help those in need.