In conjunction with AIKOL Festival 2017 and World Kindness Day on the 13th of November 2017, the Welfare Secretariat had organized a competition portraying acts of kindness titled ‘AIKOL Kindness Challenge’ which was held from 25th October 2017 until 3rd November 2017. The competition was organized in order to inspire and motivate the IIUM community and society to carry out any act of kindness in any opportunity that they may encounter and hence, it was open only to IIUM students from all campus namely Gombak, Kuantan, Petaling Jaya, Crescent, Gambang and Pagoh.
The way this competition works is by participants taking a picture of an act of kindness that they portray or see and upload it to their social media accounts. The pictures are then judged by professional judges and the winners will stand a chance to win lucrative prizes which are 10x units of power bank as the consolation prizes, Elfie Drone for the third place, Iphone 5s for the 1st runner-up and an Acer laptop for the champion of this contest. This competition was inspired from the founder of Kindness Malaysia, Encik Muhammad bin Kamarulazizi, who had done 35 act of kindness during his 35th birthday on 8th April 2017, where on that day, he had also come to our Ahmad Ibrahim Kuliyyah of Laws to share his experience and expertise in sponsorship matters with our team. Besides, this competition was also in collaboration with the world prestigious non-governmental organization, Kindness Malaysia, where Encik Muhammad also acts as one of our advisors and sponsor to our programme.
Some of the photo submitted by the participants:
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| A helping hand for those who need it and do not ask, sheltering others from the rain and heat without a care for our own body. We should practice these selfless acts that do not wait for any cry of help. Look beyond what we can see and spread kindness around, sincerely. |
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| Mungkin kau tak tahu, bila mana baik budi kau, disambut mesra si penghibur alam.Kau, teruskan berbuat baik |
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| Give a smile to a stranger cause we never know how a simple smile can make a them happy |
Lots of challenges faced throughout organizing this competition, starting from the preparation in seeking the sponsor, gaining cash money from entrepreneurship activities up until the publication and promotion team to reach the target of participants. Despite the number of obstacles faced, it eventually ended successfully with the prize giving ceremony which was held on the 8th November 2017. With the willing of Allah, the commitments, sacrifices, cooperation, help and assistance given by all parties; the Kuliyyah, advisors, lecturers, staffs, students, participants, collaborators, sponsors and most importantly, the core people for this competition; the AIKOL Kindness Challenge team members, this competition would not sail smoothly without having these great people behind it.
It can be said that this programme had achieved its objectives in spreading kindness where, though this competition was being held for the very first time, it had received around approximately 300 entries from the participants. 65 best pictures were then filtered and being evaluated by two learned judges who are Encik Noor Azman Shah Ismail, an expert photographer from Office of Corporate Communication (OCCM), IIUM and Encik Muhammad himself. The entries were then being evaluated by the criteria stated in the terms and conditions which are the kindness message portrayed in the picture (30%), the creativity of caption for the picture(s) they uploaded (35%), the quality of picture (20%), number of likes for the picture uploaded in their social media (15%) and most importantly the pictures must be shariah-compliant especially in terms of awrah. Besides, the video entitled ‘The Power of Kindness’ prepared by the publication and promotion production team had also got around more than 3,000 views and 71 shares on AIKOL Kindness Challenge Facebook fan page and had been viral amongst IIUM students as well.
A post-mortem had also been conducted on 16th November 2017 by all the team members as to point out the problems or issue arose throughout organizing this competition together with the solutions and suggestions for future reference if this kind of competition could possibly have any chance to be held again in the future.
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| Media Coverage in Harian Metro |
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| The winner |
Lastly, we would like to express our gratitude towards all parties involved in this programme directly and indirectly. The dream to make this competition a reality would not have become a reality without the trust, support and assistance from all parties. May and only Allah SWT reward all of the contributor to the success of this competition with the best ever reward, that is Jannatul Firdaus (highest rank in paradise), insya Allah. Amin.
Prepared by,
Nur Balqis Mohd Badawi
Assistant Programme Manager,
AIKOL Kindness Challenge Photography Contest 2017
In collaboration with Kindness Malaysia
