UCSI University, Malaysia

Youth Beyond Boundaries - Community Volunteering Programme

Youth Beyond Boundaries (YBB) - Community Volunteering Programme (CVP) is an initiative run by UCSI University scholarship students under the guidance and mentorship of the University Trust office. Established in September 2015, YBB’s primary objective is to empower UCSI University scholars with holistic leadership development through involvement in these focus areas: youth and development; environment; community and entrepreneurship. The CVP is part of the YBB initiative that focuses on volunteerism as a means to facilitate connection with the community as well as fostering friendship among the scholars and an avenue to improve the process and approach in addressing social issues.

Currently YBB has 150 active members and their 5 initiatives are:(1) Hands of Hope - providing weekly tuition classes for refugees (2) Mindflu - promoting mental health literacy among youth (3) Dynamic Youth - football training and virtual physical exercise for refugee teenagers (4) UCSI Campus and Community – volunteerism with other organisations working with urban, poor children, refugee communities, children with diverse learning difficulties and senior citizens and animal shelters (5) What About Friendship - providing life-long friendships between students and those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Top 3 Learnings

1. We learned about the needs of the underprivileged and that transformation can take place when we stand-up corporately to work on solutions that bring forth equality among humans despite our differences.
2. We learned about the importance of mental health and social well-being and built self-advocacy skills and promoted a resilience lifestyle, necessary for living a life of abundance.
3. We learned to effectively assist and partner with diverse communities and cultures and understood the differences of our contexts and the multiple approaches in meaningful collaborative work.