A trip up north

Spent the week traveling up north to Sintok, Kedah for line up of programs with Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) under the Social Takaful Fund (STF) initiative. 

It’s been a passion of mine to live the meaning of financial inclusion across all walks of life; young or old, far or near. Food for soul seeing the pieces falling together.

It’s never a dull uneventful moment when it comes to programs at UUM. 

First day was pretty straightforward. Did the closing speech at Do It financial literacy festival.

Then followed by launching of the new STF office and meeting room. The meeting was a bit awkward when there was a request for funds for another college.

Proceeded next for an appreciation event for students who participated in our inclusion project last year.

The highlight of the day was visiting Kak Mah then going off to Kuala Perlis for seafood dinner. It’s been a while since we managed to do that.

Next day we had a carnival at our social impact project at Naka where we initiated the sponsor of equipments for a local batik business to empower the local community to improve their living standards. We’ve been working on the project since last year and it’s fulfilling to see the efforts starting to fruit.

But it seems the politics at UUM is always there – we got to witness a different school trying to take credit for the event organized by our partner, the Islamic Business School (IBS). I found it so amusing that it could happen in front of external parties, especially the funder of the event. 

Gave a good pep talk to the IBS later over dinner. 

Before going off back to KL

On Friday night caught up with my usual confidant and advisor talking over some new info received over the week. Realized that night the limited opportunities in the market and the unexciting outlook. Still hoping hard for something to come up.

Hopefully February will be kinder.