In May and June 2014, a total of 213 students between the ages of 14 to 16 attended Click! 4.0 camps held in three locations in Malaysia, namely Penang, Kuching and Kuala Terengganu. The camps listed participation from 43 schools from various states such as Penang, Kedah, Perak, Johor, Sarawak, Terengganu and Pahang as well as from programmes such as Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETA), Teach for Malaysia (TFM), Global Undergraduate Exchange Program (UGRAD), English Access Microscholarship Program (ACCESS) and Madrasah schools.
CLICK! 4.0 is organized by US Embassy KL, managed by LEAD Institute with partners LifeChamp Sdn Bhd. and MAAP. CLICK! 4.0 is envisioned to create awareness among high school students in rural and semi urban schools in Malaysia regarding social entrepreneurship and the importance of English. This camp focuses on the themes of social entrepreneurship, youth leadership, personal development and English language development. Through the 3 days 2 nights camp, the participants are taught to identify pressing issues in their communities and to ideate on social business solutions to solve these issues. The projects are then carried out for 10 weeks where the projects impact the students, mentors and also the larger community around them. In order to implement their respective projects, each team is given seed funding of RM200 and the top three pitching teams of each camp is given an additional RM100.
In each respective camp, the top three pitching teams were identified based on quality of presentation, creativity, sustainability and feasibility of the project. Following the camp, each team is required to set up a Facebook page and post weekly updates on their projects. The top two teams from each camp will be selected based on their reports, 3-minute video and other criteria such as financial management and project outcome, where the 6 teams will be attending the Grand Finale in September 2014.
The theme of the camp is “Get, Set, Go!” which aims to equip the students and mentors with necessary basics and skills of a social business project (Get), getting the participants to form their social business project (Set) and going back to their respective communities after the camp to implement the projects (Go!).The participants comprised mainly of students from schools with ETAs with addition of 5 ACCESS students and 5 Madrasah students from an Islamic school. The 43 teams were facilitated by ETAs, TFM fellows and an alumnus from the UGRAD program. The accompanying teachers who attended the camp as chaperones for the students were also involved in the daily sessions during the camp. In addition to all the affiliated partner organizations, the Kuala Terengganu camp also included partnership with English Language Teaching Centre (ELTC) and Ministry of Education (MOE) which saw the successful execution of the largest of all three camps.
One of the ongoing projects from among the three camp participants is known as Globies. This team from Penang, mentored by an alumnus of the UGRAD program, strives to help special needs students in their schools to be financially independent by teaching the students skills to make and sell snow globes. Besides that, one team from the Kuala Terengganu camp is working on gathering all the stray cats in their community, then clean and feed them and find for foster homes for the animals.
An independent evaluation company was also brought into each camp to assess the effectiveness of each camp. The criteria of assessment included level of awareness on social issues, level of understanding in leadership skills, perception on improvement in English skills and effectiveness of the facilitators. Based on the assessment done, the awareness and overall understanding about social initiatives among the students increased very significantly (by 70%) from before the camp. Besides that, students also expressed an increase in confidence of their leadership skills and English skills development as compared to before attending the camp. While the students enjoy interacting with their respective facilitators and were satisfied with how their facilitators mentored the sessions, a concern was also addressed where some students had difficulty understanding their facilitators due to the difference in accent. All organizing partners, including the Ministry of Education, are very delighted and encouraged at the impact that the camp has created.
With the completion of the three camps, the highlight is now focused on the upcoming CLICK! 4.0 Grand Finale where the top six teams will showcase their ideas and stand a chance to win amazing prizes such as a potential opportunity to undergo an exchange program to the U.S. under the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program (YES).