OUR Team

We are Mechanical Engineering students from Taylors Lakeside University. This crowd funding campaign is centered around the matter of Autism because we found out through a survey carried out that many in our society are unaware or unsure about autism amongst children. Our group decided to crowd fund for autistic children to not only donate the funds to them, but to also raise awareness among the society.

Significant rise in the amount of children in Malaysia regarding matters such as Autism has always been on the rise although exposure towards this matter is very LOW. Malaysia has soon followed the trend where number of children enrolled in special needs program has doubled between 2006 to 2013.

 DON’T GET IT WRONG!

Malaysia’s issue with sensitivity is also the main reason why we are reaching for this topic. Given the  far reaching implications of this trend on the country’s education system, health system, economy and society, a deeper understanding of the issue is VITAL.

At the present, there is no epidemiologocial data available on the prevelence of Autism in Malaysia. However, a smaller case study by the Ministry of Health on children between the ages of 18-26 months showed a rate of 1.6 in 1000 (1/625) children automatically adressing an increase in rate of autism in Malaysia.

 WHAT we're doing

In addition to raise awareness, we have reached out to a few Autistic Centres in Malaysia and asked permission if we could conduct a small workshop as well as play and interact with the children in the centres. We are introduced by some centres that autistic children mainly focuses on visuals and interaction in their education system therefore we came up with a few ideas on the workshop as follows:

 1. PLANT BED: MY OWN GARDEN

We wanted to make it memorable for the children therefore adding simple science + fun + interactive skills would be a good exposure for them as well as for us to create a small yet interesting way to make a bedded plant bed with soil and mainly coconut husks. Moreover, the children can be involved as they can plant seeds of their choice which will soon bloom into flowers. 

  2. WATER ROCKET

Water rocket is basically a SHOW & TELL where we explain the concept behind making a water rocket shoot to the sky by using vinegar and baking soda. We will introduce designing skills to the children where they can have time designing their rocket. The rocket launch will only be done by the members for safety reasons.

We plan to execute this workshop somewhere in March 2018 as members will have internship during the earlier months and the we needed a perfect time slot to conduct our workshop.

 BUDGET

WHY ONLY RM250.00?

We plan to fully utilize the lab in Taylor's University and find recycle and environmental friendly items for our project. Most of the budget will go to the items needed to conduct the activities in the workshop such as soil and seeds. Other items like the bed for the plants will be manufactured by the team. As for the water rocket, designing tools like colored paper, decorating items such as colored pens will be provided by the centres itself therefore other miscellaneous things will be provided by the team such as vinegar and baking soda. The remaining money we will use on transportation purposes and prepare a few snacks or tidbits as prizes for the children.

Where there is a WILL there is  a WAY!

We have conducted an online survey to test for our core assumptions made via Google Docs. and from here we can see that most Malaysians are not aware of the matter. The core assumptions of our project are as seen below:

This is a sample of what our online survey looks like which is targetted within a group of 50 people.

The challenges that the team might faced are very vast. It might be hard for us to gain approval from a specific centre or they might cancel our workshop plan at the last minute. Other than that, we have never interacted with such special children so our way of approach might be something new to them and might be hard for them to accept.

However, we are very confident and we had careful planning therefore we are confident that the workshop will go as planned.