By Prithikkashinie Vaithiesvaran
Main Campus, 24 April 2024 - Kelab Pembimbing Rakan Siswa USM (KPRS USM) organized a food festival, Pasar Kita: Dine Across Cultures with more than 30 vendors to celebrate the different cultures of diverse races.
According to the Vice Project Director, Azera Azamuddin, Management 3, they reached the objective of the event by exposing the students to various cultures.
She also mentioned that she was satisfied as the event exceeded their expectations as they initially targeted only 300 participants. Yet, the event was lively because they were able to attract more than 500 participants from evening till night.
“Initially, the project director and I started the planning process thoroughly by discussing the smallest details and proposed the projects to our committee members to minimize the unexpected circumstances. However, our committee members were cooperative and helpful during the execution phase”, Azera added.
She said that they have been planning for this event since the beginning of the 2023/2024 academic session and started preparing for it 3 months prior with the help of 42 committee members.
“Apart from exceeding the budget we initially set, we also found it difficult to deal with vendors as we had to wait for a long time for our paperwork to be approved by the higher authorities,” said Azera
Other challenges they faced included members who left the committee due to other commitments and the lack of skills and experience of the committee members. However, they were able to recruit more knowledgeable manpower to share their expertise and help them organize the event.
“We overcame this problem by contacting the staff frequently to speed up the approval process. They also used the funds of the club along with the money gained from sponsorship efforts”, said the secretary of the event, Noor Syafiqah binti Ibrahim.
She added that it was easy for them to deal with the funding as the vice project director was the treasurer of the club. Therefore, they were able to keep her in the loop and received advice on how to spend within the budget.
“We chose this venue due to its strategic location as it is situated in between the path students use to go to their class from their hostels at Kompleks Desasiswa RST. This made it easier to attract the crowd. We booked this location three months before the event”, she said.
“We contacted some vendors from the list we received from previous events. Apart from that, we also approached new vendors located in Penang Island. We made sure we chose different types of dishes as we did not want students to be bored with the repeating vendors” said Syafiqah.
She added that she feels very happy that they were able to make things happen as this is the first time their club conducted an event on a large scale.
“I am proud of the project director and the top committee who were able to execute their vision flawlessly. I am also glad that I had an opportunity to work with them”, Syafiqah mentioned.
“We approached the clubs in USM to showcase their traditional performances and for entertainment purposes such as Nartana under Persatuan Kebudayaan India (PKI), Boria performance by Gabungan Anak Pulau Pinang (GAPP), Zapin performance by Ikatan Mahasiswa/I Johor (IKMAR), Silat demonstration, magic show, a dance performance by Sekretariat Kebudayaan dan Kesenian Tionghua (SKKT), and a performance by Himpunan Anak-Anak Kelantan (HAAK)”, said the head of the department for participant management.
The performers of the Silat demonstration. Source Prithikkashinie Vaithiesvaran
He added that he enjoyed connecting with people from diverse backgrounds when they were looking for performers as he rarely gets the opportunity to do so.
A visitor, Tartcinessvari Mogan, Biological Sciences 3, said that she was in awe of the performances as everyone was talented.
“My favorite performance was the Zapin as I have not seen it before. They moved according to the rhythm and seemed like professionals”, she added.
She also said that she wishes that she would be able to witness more performances from different states as it is a beautiful form of art.
“I enjoyed the event as the atmosphere was very calm. Apart from the weather, there were few new food vendors which gained my attention”, she said.
She mentioned that the Takoyaki, Sushi, and cromboloni booths were among her top pics.
“I also was able to collect MyCSD points by playing the games organized. I hope other events will have interactive sessions such as this one” Tartcinessvari added.
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