I have spoken about The Growth Hub on one of my insta post on instagram before, but I feel like that there is more to tell.
The Growth Hub has been a personal project of mine when I was a fellow and it has been one of my the saving grace of my fellowship journey. The room has seen so much, it has seen me laugh my butt off, cry, my frustrations/anger and all of the emotions that a human being could ever feel. It was where I was able to unleash my creativity, express my thoughts and feelings into it without feeling judged or being watched over. This goes the same for some of my students who has spent their time in that room and my fellow collabs who has equally experienced all those feelings as well.
It was our safe space.
If I were to tell every story about the room, I could go on and on and on.
Before the whole MCO situation happened, I had already begun working on the room at the end of 2019 - meeting up with sponsors to donate tables and chairs for the room (Shout out to Epic Homes and the Obama Foundation Fellowship for being the greatest and championing my project! Couldn't have done it without any of them) - Another story to tell but damn, that experience made my fellowship journey legendary.
Why transform the room though? Was it not okay before this?
The room was initially a counselling room, but due to several issues - leaking ceiling from the toilet upstairs, broken tiles, there were even rumours about flying bats. So, the counsellors moved to a different room and ever since then the room was left unkept for many years E.g. Broken Ceiling, Broken walls alongside broken chairs and tables (Halo, aircon wires also kena bitten by rats, so obviously we can't use it. No komen).
I don't understand why no one wanted to handle the room beforehand, but hey! An open opportunity is great for me to execute my vision, which is to give the students a Study Hub, very much like study spaces that you see in international schools, universities or boarding schools.
I believe that every school deserves the best facilities in order to allow students to feel comfortable when it comes to studying or conducting activities.
My students and I were super onz about transforming this dead beat room into something refreshing and exciting for us to use - as a classroom, hang out spot for students who have to stay back after school. Technically, it did turn into their hang out space also after school since they were all working on the painting and decorations of the room.
This journey is broken down into several phases.
Phase 1 - Getting permission from the School's Administrators (Pengetua, Penolong Kanan etc) and PPD.
Tn. Mukhtar and Pn Alina, the then Principal and Penolong Kanan 1 of the school had no problems with me wanting to transform the room, so long I had a proper plan and got the paperwork ready. Tuan Mukhtar even got the room cleaned out and broke down the "extra" rooms within that room and cleared out the broken ceilings.
Pn Alina guided me throughout the paperwork and documentation, where she showed me the ways to create budget plans and enforced that no one else was to touch the room except for me.
All paperwork & documentation must be handed in to the administrators so that they could send over to PPD (Pejabat Pegawai Daerah) to show the activities that they were conducting in the school.
Phase 2 - Planning Stage & Sponsorship
At the time, I had already a little bit of budget left from the SLC project and May Yin (My 2018 TFM collab in school) decided to hand over her SLC budget to me since she's done with her project.
I had several students involved in the room planning and choosing the colours that they wanted.
At the same time, I was able to secure sponsorship for tables and chairs from Epic Homes who so generously donated 40 tables and chairs as well as 9 book racks. What was missing was the funding to refurbish the room.
Phase 3 - Execution (Cleaning up, Building from scratch)
This phase was fun, my students stayed back every Thursday to clean up and paint the room. We manage to secure some small amount of funding by using the leftover money we had from the SLC competition the year before and bought some paint alongside materials to decorate the room.
All colours are chosen and picked out by the students and I'm actually super happy with the colours because not only is it vibrant and bright, but it is also cheerful and gives life to the room.
Phase 4 - MCO & Active Sponsorship
As we all know, MCO happened in March and it affected millions of people. I had to put the project on hold and over the few months during MCO, I made a budgeting and strategy plan to see what else was needed to refurbish the room.
I realized that many things were still missing, we already had the tables, chairs and shelves but we still lacked comfort - air conditioner, proper tiles (the broken tiles were still left unfixed at that point in time). Classroom necessities such as whiteboard, proper blinds/curtains, door grill and classroom signboard were all not available. The cracked walls and broken sink were still in place and we needed a large amount of money to fix all these things.
Bless to the people who were involved in helping me plan and strategize the entire project. I used the MCO months to craft out budgets and seek for sponsorships. With the help of sponsors who were so understanding of the situation and had the same vision, the project was already solid and good to go. All I needed to do was wait for MCO to end.
Phase 5 - Renovation - Challenges
MCO ended (yay!) and all of the teachers were separated into different rooms to maintain social distancing, so we had to move from our usual tables in the Bilik Guru and some of us were placed in The Growth Hub.
Some of us had a really good time being placed in that room since it was far away from the rest and we had our own space to just talk about anything and everything. But still, the ultimate goal is for students to use that room (they couldn't as of now since it's still MCO and there's strict SOPs in place).
One of the biggest challenge I had to face was definitely discovering Termites Nest in the room. It was huge and horrible. The termites nest had already existed for quite some time but over MCO, it made its way from the ground floor all the way to the top floor and The Growth Hub was severely affected. It was eating EVERY single thing, including some of the tables and chairs.
It was going to cost a huge bomb for me to call in exterminators and asking the school for help was not an option (I tried really hard to persuade my principal but to no avail. He even suggested to put acid on the nest, which actually aggravated the termites even further. So to those who has termites nest at home or anywhere, please call a professional). Luckily for me, God was looking out for me and my friend sent me a link on a group of exterminators who were trying to terminate pests in school as part of their CSR project (Check them out at Rapidkill!! One of the best services ever).
So incredibly blessed when this company agreed to check and sanitize the school as well. The only thing is that we had to wait for 2 - 3 months for the termites nest to be exterminated completely. Infact, after checking the school, it turns out we had atleast 3 separate kingdoms of termites (Talk about what the f man).
Other than these challenges, students were not able to stay back after school for any extra activities so I had to find different ways to get things completed. Managed to call in contractors to fix up the room and install carpets + aircon to make the room a little livelier.
Phase 6 - MCO 2.0 + Work in Progress
By this time, the stupid termites nest were still in the room and the walls were still broken. No students were allowed to enter school properties except for specific reasons and with an accompanying teacher. When MCO 2.0 hit, I was already preparing to pack up my things in school since I was leaving officially in December.
The termites guy came over in late November and thank goodness, the termites were already dead by then. I was able to continue with the other incomplete work in the room. Very thankful that boi boi, his brother and sister often came over to help me out with fixing up the room - painting it, shifting all of my other things to the car and so on.
TFM fellows aka my collabs has also been the biggest contributors in fixing up the room and the best of the best companions, absolutely couldn't have done it without them.
Phase 7 - The Growth Hub
The team got smaller over the months due to MCO, in the final stages only Boi Boi, his sister Girl Girl and younger brother Ah Cong were allowed to help out.
And, to the final phase. It is unfortunate that I wasn't able to use the room to teach my students, but at the very least, it's completed for future use (whenever MCO ends that is).
I had the heaviest of heart leaving the room on my last day. Even boi boi felt sad leaving the room, promising me that he'd take care of it whenever he's in school. True to word tho, he checks on the room all the time he goes to school. HAHAHA. So glad I have a spy in school to help me check on my baby project.
I hope you will be the room where students will be happy to enter each time they have their lessons, where they will feel different as compared to the boring ass classrooms that they are in. Just as how you were there for me when I faced several emotions as a teacher and where my students had fun entering the room to hang out, do their work/have extra lessons, I hope others would find the same comfort in you too.
It's taken me nearly half a year to write about you, granted I was lazy la no doubt HAHAH.
Thank you, for being one of my most meaningful projects on top of the other initiatives I've done. It wouldn't have been the same without The Growth Hub and I'm glad that I stuck through til the very end.
Signing off,
Sofea
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