COMMUNITY SERVICE INITIATIVE

04/09/20 - 27/11/20 (Week 2 - Week 14)

Group Members

Yeap Phay Min 0331073

Linda Oktaviani 0333152

Jennifer Vioni 0334598

Khaira Nadia 0334502

Megan Ong 0331001

Alicia Lee 0331719

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INTRODUCTION

In this module of Community Service Initiative, students are required to work in groups and select an NGO of our interest to work with. The aim of the collaboration between the group and the NGO will be to provide aid and/or help to raise awareness on the important social issues. Due to the current Covid-19 pandemic, we are advised not to have any physical activities.  

My team and I are passionate about animals and has decided to work with AnimalCare, in the hopes of raising awareness on their movement of CNRM (Care, Neuter, Return, Manage) along with the "adopt don't shop concept". This will be done through a social media campaign.

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INSTRUCTIONS

Module Information Booklet

Rubric

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PROGRESS DOCUMENTATION

04/09/20 (Week 2) 

In the first class, we were introduced to what this module is about, including the projects which will be conducted in groups. Once we had our groups, the first step was to search up for various NGOs that we would be interested to work with for this module.

11/09/20 (Week 3)

We started by making a list of potential NGOs we could work with.

Initial List of NGOs:

- PAWs 

- My Forever Doggo

- SPCA

- SCA

- AnimalCare

- A Dog's Life

- MyKasih

- SUKA Society 

After more research on each NGO, we decided to go with AnimalCare because we were interested with their vision and mission towards saving and helping stray animals. 

Website: https://myanimalcare.org

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myanimalcareorg/

Vision: To create a community that embraces kindness and adopts pro-life values towards animals.

Mission: To promote the practice of One-Street CNRM (Care-Neuter-Return-Manage) for street animals.

AnimalCare offers financial aid for the Neutering and Vaccination of street animals in Malaysia.

AnimalCare was founded by Dr Chan Kah Yein on 31st May 2009 and is registered as AnimalCare Society Petaling, Selangor (Persatuan Penyayang Haiwan Petaling, Selangor) back in 2011.

Before proceeding with coming up with specific ideas on what we could do to help them, we tried to send them an email first to confirm if they were okay with collaborating with us. Fortunately, we received a quick response from them, in which we are allowed to work with them. 

Screenshot of Email:

18/09/20 (Week 4)

This week, we started to identify the needs of the NGO and the opportunities for us to help.

W4's Progress Slides:

25/09/20 (Week 5)

Currently, our project idea is of a social media campaign consisting of visuals to raise awareness on the CNRM concept, along with the "adopt don't stop" concept. We plan to design Instagram posts and stories, which will be shared with AnimalCare to post on their social media, as well as posting it on every member's accounts to further spread the awareness on it.

Once we identified the project idea of a social media campaign, we forwarded the idea to AnimalCare to see if the direction of the project was okay.

Screenshot of Email:

W5's Progress Slides: 

02/10/20 (Week 6) 

Once we finalised the project idea, we decided on the art direction.

W6's Progress Slides: 

09/10/20 (Week 7 & 8)

In the previous week, we also split the list of visuals that needed to be designed and worked on them. Then, we compiled them in our slides.

W7 & 8's Progress Slides: 

23/10/20 (Week 9) 

This week, we compiled our illustrations into a drive so we could make sure all of our designs were consistent.

W9's Progress Slides: 

Final Visuals

Posts: 

Stories: 

30/10/20 (Week 10)

After finalising the visual, we compiled them in a Google Drive and sent it to AnimalCare.

Email Response:

Moving on from that, we started to post the visuals on our own social media to further raise awareness on it. The first set was on the CNRM concept. We also received positive comments from people who viewed our postings which was good.

06/11/20 (Week 11)

This week, we proceeded to post the next and last set of visuals to post on our own social media platforms. The second and last set was related to animal adoption. We've also tagged AnimalCare in the post so people are able to click into their profile to view what they do. 

We managed to receive more positive responses. 

Below is a compilation of some of the replies.

We also looked into the insights of the Instagram Story. Through the insights, we can see that it received around 100-200 views, along with a handful of people that tapped on AnimalCare's account which was tagged in our post.

13/11/20 (Week 12)

In this week, we worked on our presentation slides which consisted of what we did throughout this module such as the proposal and the online activity carried out. 

20/11/20 (Week 13) 

Presentation Slides:

27/11/20 (Week 14)

In the final week, we proceed to work on this e-portfolio post, compiling our work/progress in the past weeks and also writing our individual reflections to wrap up this module.

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REFLECTION

Yeap Phay Min 0331073

While working with an NGO in this module, I got to reflect and learn about the importance of empathy as a designer, as it allows us to come up with human-centric designs that are able to effectively raise awareness and educate the public on important issues. After all, design is a visual communication tool. I felt that the experiences throughout the weeks were valuable because I got to empathise with their needs, find opportunities within the area to help take action, and then come up with relevant designs that are meaningful. Additionally, I’m grateful to be able to work with an NGO that is passionate about caring for animals as I believe that animal abandonment and homelessness is a serious on-going issue. Animals are unable to speak up for themselves while living in situations with cruelty inflicted on them, therefore it was a good opportunity for us to help raise awareness on AnimalCare’s CNRM concept and about animal adoption. Overall, I found this module to be a good experience as we got to come up with a project that delivers societal benefits. I’m thankful for my team as we managed to work on our project smoothly, Mr Charles for guiding us through this module week by week, and also Dr Chan from AnimalCare for allowing us to work with them.

Linda Oktaviani 0333152

From the beginning of the class we are required to get into a team and we have to help an NGO. We started to list down some of NGO and decided to help “Animal Care”. We have looked through their social media and website to get some idea what we can help. So we decided to focus on illustration and help them redesign some of their information design like their mission which is  “CNRM (Care-Neuter-Return-Manage)” and other stuff. Since their social media don't have much engagement with the followers/audience, we decided to come out with some design that can increase their engagement and we personally post on our own account to expose their account and some information to educate people about this NGO and we got positive responses from other people. We were guided with Dr Charles week by week to make sure that we are on track and finally me and my team manage to finish this project well.

Jennifer Vioni 0334598

This experience taught me new things when it comes to stray animals, especially with Animal Care’s main mission: to educate the public and practice One-Street CNRM (Care-Neuter-Return-Manage). The first time I saw their websites alone, I was able to learn quite a lot about CNRM and about other information revolving cats and dogs as pets. It’d be such a shame if those information aren’t able to be communicated effectively and thoroughly to the public, therefore my group and I decided to help them with the visual part. I personally think what we did was just icing on the cake, while Dr Chan from Animal Care did the foundation. The whole experience was humbling overall. I got to learn a lot and it was thought-provoking as the issue of animal abandonment and stray animals’ lives on the street is a concerning issue in the country still. I appreciate all the work that Animal Care has done and my group mates for working with me efficiently during the Community Service Initiative module, in which Dr Charles also played a big part in guiding us.

Khaira Nadia 0334502

To reflect my experience on the Community Service Initiative module, it was an adequate experience. My group chose to work with Animal Care founded by Dr Chan Kah Yein who is on the mission to promote the practice of One-Street CNRM (Care-Neuter-Return-Manage) for the street animals in Malaysia. We helped out by creating illustrations for the important information that were provided from her website and also by sharing it to our social media accounts. Besides the illustrations, we were not able to work on further however, I do felt that we could help with more designing but we had respect for Dr Chan’s privacy conditions, we were only left with digital works. In addition to this, with the current pandemic situation, I also felt that we were quite restricted in doing anything socially or physically for everyone’s health and safety.

Other than this, I’d like to thank Dr Chan for her patience and allowing us to create a design project from Taylor’s Design School. I would also like to thank my dear group mates for their hard work and collaborative support throughout this hard time.

Megan Ong 0331001

At the beginning of the semester, we were informed that this model required the utilisation of teamwork. With my 5 other teammates, we worked with an animal based NGO called MyAnimalCare based in Petaling Jaya, who was founded by Dr Chan Kah Yein. We participated by helping them to promote the CNRM concept they created by illustrating visuals made into Instagram posts and Instagram stories that would be sent to them. In addition to working with them, I found myself getting utterly educated on their concept as in my opinion, it is a great way to spread awareness and promote the proper ways to care for these animals and I do acknowledge the fact that it does hold great potential to convince individuals to take proper action in the real world where animals tend to get hurt everyday which is a common social issue. I’m glad that this module was able to give me the opportunity to experience something that not only benefits myself as a graphic designer, but very much benefits the NGO that we played a part in providing designs for. All in all, It was an honour to work with MyAnimalCare and I'm thankful for the weekly guidance from Dr Charles along with such an incredible team to accomplish the tasks with.

Alicia Lee 0331719

Through working with an NGO in this module, I’ve come to realise that design is not just limited to the media or for advertising purposes but rather one that can be used to help communicate powerful messages that can aid in solving the problems around us. As such I have realised how impactful design can be when chosen to be used for the greater good. Thus, it was an honour to help AnimalCare further raise awareness on their cause as the issue of pet abandonment and stray animals has been increasing especially with the current pandemic. It was a valuable experience to be able to give a voice to these animals as a fellow animal lover. I hope that we have helped raise awareness on these issues and impacted people to choose to support this cause. Overall, this module has been quite the eye opener and a great experience, I’m thankful for the opportunity to work with AnimalCare and my group mates that have made the final outcome possible as well as Mr Charles for guiding us through the process.