By Hemaa a/p Vikneswaran
There are various ways to describe the concept of community & diversity, but it boils down to a collection of individuals from a variety of backgrounds. International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) is home to Malaysians as well as students from across the world. This is evident to everyone who visit.
As for Malaysian students, there are students from different parts of Malaysia and also from different races. We could see a diverse community at IIUM which is amazing and wonderful.
Looking at this, the community & diversity division of The Good Society has decided to conduct a program that is going to bring a positive change, and this program is called the Good Buddy, we have planned to make it an ongoing program.
As for this program, two Malaysian students and three international students would be grouped and they would be mentor-mentees for the whole semester the main aim of this program is to break the barrier between Malaysian and international students.
It is amazing to meet people from different countries where we get to learn about their country, culture, language, food and so many interesting things about their traditions. As IIUM students we are lucky because we get to meet friends from different countries to exchange ideas and traditions.
From the perspective of the community & diversity division we look at the good buddy program as a stepping stone to achieve our missions and the most important mission is to break the barrier between the Malaysian and international students but we believe that it is going to bring a tremendous change, maybe not by this semester but we believe that it will bring changes as the program continues.
This program is not specifically aimed to bring changes among the 30 participants only but we also aim to spread and share the benefits of this program among all the IIUM students. The biggest aim of the community and diversity division would be one day to see the barriers have been broken and the bonds have been strengthened between all the students in IIUM.