Project Happiness – The Happy Beat Project 

The goal of Happy Beat Project is teaching kids from the orphanage homes how to play music through simple recycled items by playing beats and let them to have an opportunity to perform to the public. The fund raising gives us chance to make a shout out to the society, telling them we are doing this, also as an event promoting. It’s tough when it comes to money, but we managed to raise enough money bit-by-bit.

In the early of the proposal, it was planned to be a performance to the public from two homes (which are nearest to each other), but things do not worked well, orphanages we selected wasn’t interested in this idea, so we turned out going station by station instead of doing both together. Thus, New Life Care Centre, Port Dickson was chosen as the first station of our project. The kids from the home are Indians and Malays, while our team members are all Chinese. It wasn’t tough if we speak English with them, but some of the younger kids do not understand English and only speaks Tamil. The bigger kids who slightly understands English, always volunteered to be the translator, which makes us feel that the kids are really intimate and caring. 

The most unanticipated difficulties was, we did not expect that small amount of crowd during the performance, as we already chose the place with most crowd in Port Dickson – Teluk Kemang and perform on a public holiday (31th of August). However, there is still a few tourists got attracted and their kids joined us to play. The flyers of helping the home needs were not given out thoroughly as the crowd is too small. But the kids do really enjoy themselves performing by the beach. It is lack of the promoting of this event, as this is the first time for us planning such a big event. We will take it as an experience and improve ourselves for the next station and hoping for the better improvement. 

The benefit party for this project is both the project team and the orphanage. The team enjoys the time spent with the kids, playing together and making different kinds of DIY stuffs together. From the feedback from the team, they are grateful that they’ve joined this project to bring more than just ‘donation’ to the kids; they had good times with them and had already treated the kids as their friends. While the orphanage kids enjoyed their first performance by the beach, happy to play with our team and they do also received presents (new bags along with new stationeries, home needs and McDonald’s happy meal). The home expressed their gratitude to us on the last day of the project, telling us it’s really happy to see the kids enjoyed so much and that’s what makes them feel pleased. 

During the project period, we realized that there are kids who is having music potentials in them and this is why we are giving them a Djembe(musical instrument) to let them continue playing this. By this, the kids can use their own instruments to play during any event in the future (as I know, the kids love to play music on Sunday prayers at the church), which leads to the long term impact of the project. We have not gave them the djembe as we turned out with a plan to give them on Christmas as a gift for them, as they are all Christians and it would be great to see the kids again after the project. 

I believe this project brings happiness to the orphanage children, from the first day to the last day, or maybe still continuing. The kids were so happy and excited when they DIY their own musical instruments and T shirts, they don’t mind getting themselves dirty with the paint, they draw paint on their faces instead. Since week 2, they getting used to us coming to the home on 2pm, standing infront of the home gate, waiting for our arrival. Everytime we are welcomed by them singing the song we taught them and always ends with full of laughter. I did remember, on the last day of the project, before we go to the performance area, the kids get themselves changed into their self painting Tshirts. A few of them wore their new pants and new shoes, and telling me that they are getting excited to perform in the crowd. They showed me how meaningful it is this project to them and how important it is to them. And I tell myself, it’s all worth it.
This is the first time I go to an orphanage home. In my impression, orphanage kids are shy, not out-going, and fear of outsiders or being socialized. These kids from New Life Care Centre, Port Dickson do really change how I think. They are heart-warming; they are lovely like angels of this Earthly ground. They smile and laugh with the truest heart. On the last day of the project, the kids did told me one of the elder ones is having her 17th birthday on the next day, our team decided to make a simple card for her, with full of blessings and wishes. I passed it to her when she’s enjoying her Happy Meal; she was so shocked and touched, giving me the face expression that I will not forget in my lifetime. She hugged me and repeating ‘thank you so much, I really appreciate it, thank you!’ and tears rolling off. They don’t expecting anything from you, they don’t demand, they’re grateful of what they have today from us, the simplest happiness.

The kids don’t take others opinion/comment towards their heart, they do things in their own way; they define beauty by themselves, which makes them happier than us, all of us, the adult, the city, the community, the world. The laughter from them, is the reason I smile today.

Yes, project Happiness did change my view to this world. Being a 20 years old student, I barely seen any company or people give chance to university student to build up a project (lack of experience), but KHIND changed how I think. It makes me feel that, this world is full of hope. There are still kind people outside wants to bring happiness to this world and light up the dark corner. Although it would not be a great and long-life one, but it do live in our and their heart forever. Because, the smallest things fill up the most space in our heart.