Empowering students and community through field visit

Three lecturers from MPI and two professors from National Chi Nan University joined in the trip.

MPI’s Diploma in Social Work lecturer Francisca Numpang said the trip is part of the field visit to expose students from Social Work Department and ECE Department on what community work is all about.

“This trip is important because we want the students to build their communication skills and to see how the students could explore themselves when they are doing community work.

“We want to see that the students are able to use their knowledge, skills and values in social work in dealing with the marginalised people in the community,” she said.

According to her, this is also part of the assignment for Social Work and ECE students. She said this round, MPI had the pleasure to have students from National Chi Nan University, Taiwan to join the trip.

She believed this is a great exposure for students to see how they could work with the communities and the kind of social issues or problems that they are likely to assess one day.

At the same time, the students could improve their communication skills and have a closer rapport with communities.

During the visit, the students got to understand the purpose of the establishment of both centres and the activities that the community in the centres have.

Hope in Christ (HIC) Centre was set up to create a support system for the ex-convicts (men) while Elim Centre was set up as a rehabilitation centre for women who had drug addictions.

The entourage got to visit HIC farm and they did praise and worship and some fun activities with the community at Elim Centre.

“We want to see especially the first-year students how they explore themselves and of course, this is not a yearly event, but something we do to bring our students out from the classroom.

“What I really hope from these students is that we want them to get the idea of what the reality is when they approach a community,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Diploma in Social Work is a two-and-a-half-year programme accredited by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA).

It covers three components – knowledge, skills, and values.

Graduates with this certification are not only eligible to work in Malaysia, whether in non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or government agencies, but they also have job opportunities abroad.