A total of 500 students from Forms 4 and 5 as well as teachers of Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (P) Methodist (MGS) Ipoh, benefitted from a workshop recently on City Survival Skills. Conducted by Code Red Survival Academy Chairman, Captain Balasupramaniam and organised by Soroptimist International Ipoh (SI Ipoh), the half-day event was held in the school auditorium and received an enthusiastic reception from the audience with many staying behind and asking for more.
In light of the rising incidences of violence against women and the spate in the number of young girls and ladies becoming victims to all sorts of crimes especially in the city, SI Ipoh decided that it was time they did their best to reach out to as many girls as possible and teach them techniques on how to protect and defend themselves in the event of an attack on their safety.
Captain Balasupramaniam began by saying, “Survival is a living art and dying is not an option.” The attendees were taught to Take Control! And to make their day to day existence safer by strategizing it and to avoid unnecessary risks in the urban environment. Damage control was high on the agenda and the girls were taught to cope with any situation with confidence.
Not only was Captain Bala’s programme extremely useful, it was conducted in such a light, humorous and fun manner that the girls were in squeals of laughter at his presentation throughout the session. There were times when graphic pictures were shown to alert the girls of the dangers they may face. It was certainly an eye-opener for these innocent girls who went away better aware and alert to their surroundings.
Captain Bala covered a whole range of topics from home intruders prevention; break in survival; the art of escape and self-defence and rape survival. The girls were especially warned against too much exposure on Facebook, trusting people too much and cyber crimes. It was appalling for them to know how one can be easily deceived by sex predators or even get their drinks spiked.
Captain Bala’s famous words which left a deep impression on the hearts of many were: “Prepare and prevent, don’t repair and repent.”
MGS Principal, Datin Mungit Kaur, expressed her deepest gratitude to SI Ipoh President, Mrs Lanka Devi and her members for having sponsored this programme for her school and hoped for more in the years to come. The pupils too hoped that this programme could reach out to more girls from other schools.
Soroptimist International Ipoh is one of 15 clubs in Malaysia while Soroptimist International is present in 124 countries and has 3000 clubs with over 86,000 members. It is a worldwide service organisation for women committed to a world where women and girls together achieve their individual and collective potential, realise aspirations and have an equal voice in creating strong, peaceful communities worldwide.
Soroptimist International is a global volunteer movement working together to transform the lives of women and girls.
