Social Change 2.0

We had been reading the book Social Change 2.0 for our leadership class. I had only read the 1st three chapter. Basically the book interest me as it was wrote based on experiences. What I can conclude from the 1st three chapter is; to make changes, reputation is vital and if you do not have one, build one!

Our yound ones

Yesterday I had a chance to join the volunteer group at Boys and Girls Club of Carbondale. They were playing volleyball as a part of their recreation week when we came in. I will not really describe what happened during our visit as I can easily conclude it by saying very meaningful. However, I want to share my view on children.

As we all understand, children are tomorrow’s leaders (decision maker) and it is sad to know that not every child in this world is fortunate enough to have a decent life. I can’t blame anyone on that as even many adult is not having a decent life in this world. It’s a cruel world they says. Therefore, it is not something we can change in one day, but the changes can be made faster if everyone understand and play their role wisely. Helping hands for children can come in monetary, volunteerism, material donation and many more. Giving children good education is not enough as human being also need to be brought up with other moral values such as courtesy and so on. As America struggle to give every American a decent life, the third world country and developing country struggle more. The mentality of some people around the globe are just too cruel even for themselves. The greed to be wealthy and powerful never end but should never be a reason for discriminating our young ones.

A child mind should be develop in their earliest years and their creativity should never be stopped. Developing country and the third world country is struggling in providing infrastructure and human capital to do so. Improvements are undeniable. But how fast is it? When will we live in a equal world where opportunities are there for everyone? There need to be opportunities in the first place before anyone can blame the people on making bad choices. Billion dollars had been invested on children around the world since ages. However the changes are still far from satisfying as the involvement are not from everyone.

Right now I’m with 19 youth from Malaysia, Indonesia and The Philippine which I believe are great people which is very unique in their own way. Having to know them for the last 2 weeks I strongly believe that this group of people are made to make changes.

America.. Economy of scale. The luxury of choices!

I was a kid who was brought up in a country which used to be colonized by the Britain, had a chance to do a little bit of my primary school in the UK, studied in Malaysia which the academic system was quite similar to the British, and basically a lot of things in my life was about the British. Going to America was always one of the trips that I must make but I do not mind when as I strongly believe that I will at least step once on the land of the United States in my life. But I never imagine that it would be right now. =P

SUSI had given me the chance to be in the states and experience it not like most people will. Why do I say so? Imagine trying to cramp everything in 5 weeks and having program about America every single day. Even some American will enjoy something like this or they might get tired of it. Haha.

The journey itself from the other side of the world made me exhausted but it was worth every step. I would love to go for the details but I believe it better if you just read it from one of my Malaysia friend which is also in the program. They do a better job on that rather than I will. If you ever read my blog before, you will understand that I never really go into the details most of the time.

So what’s interesting about America? In my point of view, I’ll say that you will have the luxury of choices. You can enjoy a lot of stuff with a reasonable price according to your budget. As a very huge country that have a lot of purchasing power, America benefit from the economy of scale. Even the luxury good in the states is not as expensive as the one in Malaysia. For an example, buying Lamborghini or even a plane in the US will never be as much as expensive it would be in Malaysia. One of the reasons will be the economy of scale. With only 27 million populations, as a businessman, do you really thing that you can sell a lot of jet and luxury cars or even anything in a developing country as Malaysia? Certainly no. Jacking the price higher, some goods are being highly taxed by the government for various reasons.

I cannot imagine what will happen in Malaysia if the car price in the country is as same as the US. Maybe a lot more Malaysian will drive luxury cars such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Rolls Royce or a Maybach. That is not impossible! Hahahaha. Even with ridiculous price in Malaysia, there are people driving it around town and a lot of people driving Mercedes and BMW. The most important aspect for me will be the quality of cars that will be on the road of Malaysia as general. Maybe we can decrease the number of death on the Malaysian road if we have better quality of cars with whatever the price we are paying currently for a car in Malaysia. Bare with me, I love cars. =P Everyday goods are clearly cheaper and the quality of everything on the shelves wherever you go will definitely be as reasonable as the price you can get.

Love to talk more about a lot of other things but I’ll catch you up later.