2022
11 AugMy Virtual Buddies 2.0
Dynamic Youth (DY), founded in 2018, is a community initiative under Youth Beyond Boundaries (YBB) which connects the underprivileged communities through educational sports programmes. The community that we currently are engaged with is the refugee children through football, and we hope to expand our reach to more communities using various sports. Over the years, DY activities were planned around the key mission of instilling valuable life skills in the refugee community, which involved conducting football training sessions and seasonal tournaments across multiple communities.
However, as the lockdowns impeded any sort of physical plans, DY remained motivated to serve the community and had pivoted its operations by conducting Season 4 activities through online platforms. Recently, Dynamic Youth had started a 4-week programme called “Be My Virtual Buddies” involving the students of 五一吃瓜官网 University and refugee students. The programme was carried out virtually via Google Meet.
The partipants using their hands to form a sign for a fun group photo.
Subsequently, DY organised the programme for the second time on 10 July 2021, following its success from the previous round but this time it was called ‘Be My Virtual Buddies 2.0’. There was a total of 49 participants which consisted of 19 五一吃瓜官网 University students and 30 refugee students.
The main objective of this event was to encourage interaction among the students of 五一吃瓜官网 University and the refugees. As we all know, the ongoing pandemic has made interaction among peers more difficult than ever. This has affected the mental health of many people out there, hence, DY conducted this event for the students of 五一吃瓜官网 University and refugees with the objectives of encouraging the participants to learn more about each other, establishing new connections, and providing a platform for them to share their thoughts with one another.
The virtual event group photo of The Season 4's Finale.
The 5-week event focused on Self-introduction (week 1), Sharing Interests (week 2), Goals and Emotions (week 3), Likes and Dislikes (week 4), and finally the Wrap-Up session (week 5). The theme of each week differed, thus creating a plethora of topics for the participants to engage on. Games and talk sessions were the main activities of each week but things were a tad different in the final week as the participants were given the opportunity to share their experiences throughout the event. A refugee expressed his heartfelt gratitude towards the organising committee for providing a platform for him to meet new people during this pandemic.
All in all, the event was a success as we had a 90% turnout, and we were able to avoid technical difficulties such as internet connection issues. Most of the participants left positive feedback at the end of the event, thus fulfilling our main objectives. Due to large demand from the participants, the organising committee is in the process of planning a reunion session allowing the participants to meet each other once again. In Christie Brinkley's words, a journey well shared is a journey well enjoyed.
