Overview
GULL’s work in South East Asia began in 2010 and the 5th Annual Malaysian Graduation took place on Sunday 3 May 2015 in Kuala Lumpur. The event was attended by more than 300 students and family members. GULL South East Asia (SEA) is especially proud of the fact that many of its graduates left school with few qualifications and did not anticipate that they would be able to gain professional awards that affirm their readiness for employment. In a video recorded after the 2015 event, Vincent Tang (Regional President, GULL SEA) and Richard Teare (President, GULL) comment on regional developments and outcomes. This video also includes feedback from GULL students recorded at the graduation. Header photo by: Jojo Nicdao
1. Graduation and Associate centre visits, May 2015
Led by Dato’ Dr Vincent Tang, GULL South East Asia has developed an innovative network of more than 40 associate centres throughout the region, spanning both commercial workplace and non-commercial community service applications. The associate centre network focuses on developing professional practice skills and all students must demonstrate attainment of a range of skills in each centre’s own realistic work environment prior to receiving GULL’s professional Certificate or Diploma awards. The second video profiles this development and includes comments from associate centre representatives.
GULL’s action learning system is used for personal and professional development by a number of non-profit agencies in Kuala Lumpur and this is the subject of the third video. In 1998, Dr Tiew Chew Ming founded Persatuan Kebajikan Kanak-Kanak Istimewa Insan (PKKII) a residential home that currently cares for 47 brain-injured children, supported by a team of volunteers that vary in number from 30 to 50 people. PKKII faces a number of operational challenges – it has to sustain a sponsorship network and recruit and train its own volunteers. As the care schedules vary from child to child, extensive technical training is needed and so together with GULL, PKKII has been able to integrate its training with action learning via the creation of a staff development pathway to GULL awards.
2. Associate centre visits, December 2015
GULL South East Asia (SEA) has developed a wide network of associate centres in Malaysia. Most of the centres provide skills training for school leavers and by linking action learning to personal and skills development, the associate centres are able to provide pathways that lead to GULL’s professional Bachelor degree for students and also staff options for skills updating and career development.
The first of two videos recorded in December 2015, profiles the work of Harold’s Academy a leading bakery college located in Kuala Lumpur.
The second video profiles the Ho Choy Sun therapy centre in the city of Ipoh which is located 200 km north of Kuala Lumpur. Ipoh is the capital of Perak state and one of the largest cities in the country. Ho Choy Sun trained for 13 years to learn the techniques of traditional Chinese therapy – a service which he provides free of charge. During the visit Dato’ Vincent Tang and Richard Teare interviewed a number of patients with serious medical conditions – all of whom said that together with on-going medical treatment, traditional therapy had facilitated pain relief and other benefits.
How can my organization get involved?
Thank you for reading this case study. Do please think about what you can offer and how you might inspire others in your organization to get involved. Together, we can bring hope and opportunity to the many people around the world who do not have access to lifelong learning. GULL works with organizations that share our vision for universal access to learning in the workplace and in the community. If you would like to affiliate with GULL's network movement, please review the 'Affiliation' section at the GULL website - www.gullonline.org. There are no membership fees or other barriers to participation - we'd like to work with you to harness all the skills and abilities that your organization can offer in order to help others to learn, grow and develop. Please note though that GULL does not have the resources to support individual learners and it is for this reason we can only correspond with organizations via their nominated representative(s).
GULL is a not-for-profit foundation registered in California, USA. GULL is recognized by the Government of Papua New Guinea & endorsed by other Governments, Leaders & Institutions.