Projects

Total Immersion Camp (TIC)

Total Immersion Camp is an intensive 21-day English camp for secondary school bound Tamil School students. At camp, they use English in creative ways and explore and understand their self, surroundings and culture through role plays, book or movie discussions, games, site visits and outbound activities.

To date two annual programmes have been successfully implemented for a total of 140 students.

Aims and Objectives of the Programme

The programme aims to create a smoother transition for Tamil school students entering secondary schools, so that they exude self-confidence, and are more proficient in English.

Course content

The programme will be taught in three levels — basic, pre-intermediate, and intermediate. Each level, covered in a seven-day period, will focus on verbal fluency, reading and writing, and listening skills. The programme will emphasis on the functional use of the language in order to build confidence among students. The learning would not be exam oriented, but fun-filled and activity based.

Evaluation

The evaluation will be both qualitative and quantitative, and also on going:
At the end of the programme, students will be evaluated using formal and informal tests in order to find out if the project objectives are met.
Also, students’ general confidence level — their willingness to come forward, and talk in English — will be gauged.

Project READ

Project READ aims to cultivate reading and library habits among Tamil students, using read aloud and story telling. About 150 students from 5 Tamil Schools participated in the year long pilot project completed on June 2005. The Malaysian Community Education Fund is also a participant in the project.

Aims and Objectives

This project aims to cultivate reading and library habit among Tamil school students. The objectives of the project:
• To ensure students of ages between 10 and 11 in 10 Tamil schools to read at least • To help the students become accustomed to using public libraries. One way is to bring • To ensure parents play their role in contributing to these objectives. One method is to have discussions which will take place twice — once in the middle and the other at the end of programme. In the second session, students will be given certificates of achievement.

Evaluation

Evaluation is an on-going process. The log the students maintain will be used to gauge the effectiveness of the programme. If the record of the books read becomes increasingly advanced, the objectives of the project would be considered met.

Furthermore, the following indicators will be used to gauge the effectiveness of the project:
• The number of student who continue to participate until end of the project.
• The number of students who continue to visit libraries regularly during the project.
• The average number of books per month read by the participant within the period of the project.

Project EEP

As English has been the global communication tool, Tamil school students need to be prepared to enrich English proficiency among them for a better future.

EWRF is highly committed to run English Enrichment Programme to promote English among Tamil school students, so that they would be well equipped to face challenges ahead.

This programme aims to teach children to communicate effectively in spoken English using games and fun activities. Games can be motivating as they introduce an element of competition into language building activities, thus creating a meaningful context for language use.

The programme would totally immerse Tamil school students at least 3 hours weekly in English, increase the vocabulary by 500 words in English by end of the year and ensure that all participants develop a liking for English.
All students will be provided with refreshments and learning materials. Teachers will be provided with some basic equipment to aid them in carrying out their lessons.

Young Scientific Explorers

Young Science Explorers encourages Tamil School students to be inquisitive in learning science in a ‘fun’ and creative way. It exhibits to students interesting experiments and exposes them to practical approaches at tackling scientific problems. Between July ’04 and August ’06, a total of 1200 students from 30 Tamil Schools participated in the project.

Aims

The project aims to introduce science to the young in a more ‘fun’ way in order to help them develop a love for the subject, and be creative in their thinking of science.

Objectives

• To conduct simple, yet interesting experiments for standard five students; at 30 Tamil schools a total of 8 different experiments will be conducted in each school.
• To bring all the participating students to the National Science Center once, and explain to them at least 25 exhibits or displays found there.
• To disseminate the findings to all Tamil schools, and emphasize the importance of ‘hands-on’ experience.

Evaluation

The impact of this will be evaluated by essay competition, which will be held among the 1200 students (30 Tamil schools) after completion of this programme. Quizzes are also being organized for 10 schools during the visit to further study and enhance the effectiveness of the project. Besides that, feedback forms will be sent to all 30 schools.

Project RENEW

RENEW is the brainchild of EWRF Kajang branch. The pilot project was launched at Sekolah Menengah Jalan Bukit, Kajang, with the cooperation of the school authorities and a pool of committed volunteers, for students at the Form One and Form Two levels.

RENEW will target "at risk" children around the ages of 13 to 14. RENEW will focus on Indian students who are from the bottom ranked classes of a school whom the school authorities and counselors have identified as "problem" children and are "at risk" of losing their direction in life.

Statistically these students constitute the majority of students in the bottom ranked classes. They are generally from the lower income group with little or no guidance.

The programme was successfully implemented via workshops, sports and games, extra coaching for academic subjects, self-empowerment sessions and interaction with parents, positive role modeling and any other form of intervention deemed essential.

Realize, Enrich, Knowledge, Empower and Work their potential themselves to achieve their goals.

Centre for Career, Counselling & Guidance (C3G)

What is this project all about?

• To help students gain self-awareness, where the students learn their interests, values, skills, and personal preferences
  
• To link students’ self-awareness to available opportunities—to suitable careers, and their occupational possibilities
  
• To help students make decisions, develop action plans and set goals to achieve their chosen careers
  
• To help students to plan their job search
  [more]

EWRF Junior Club

EWRF Junior Club was launched for the betterment of form one to form five students especially those who have participated in any activities conducted by EWRF. Activities such as Educational Seminars, Adventure Camps, Study Tours, Sports, Quiz etc would be carried out for the members of the club.

Transition To Secondary school (TRANSEC)

TRANSEC is a program to mentally and emotionally prepare Tamil school students by providing guidance and creating awareness on the importance of secondary school education before the students enter the schools in 2008. The program is also aimed at preventing the students from embroiling into undesirable conducts which could prove to be damaging to their studies and lives.

EWRF Project Hope Fraser's Hill

Aims of Project Hope

The goal of this program is to prevent financially deprived students from dropping out and provide them an empowering environment with basic amenities and quality education.

Why Fraser’s Hills
Fraser's Hills was chosen because of its environment which provides a conducive condition for primary education. SJK(T) Fraser's Hills is a fully aided Tamil School with low enrollment of students. There are four (4) teachers who will be able to teach and provide quality education to the children.

Child Selection Criteria

• Students of Project Hope must come from Tamil medium primary schools.
• They must be from homes where household income is less than RMI,200.
• Students from single parent family or orphans are given priority.