On the 28th of May in 2022, the Faculty of Pharmacy of UiTM Puncak Alam conducted a Service Learning Malaysia-University for Society (SULAM) programme which was named as Program SULAM: MediFun. The programme was organized in collaboration with lecturers and students from Part 2 in the Know Your Medicine (UPH654) course that consists of three different faculties which are the Faculty of Pharmacy, Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Faculty of Health Science of UiTM. The main activity of the programme was an exploration race. The objective of the programme is to give early exposure and garner interest in the knowledge of responsible medicine usage for elementary and secondary school students. The selected participants were B40 students from Sekolah Kebangsaan Puncak Alam 2, Sekolah Kebangsaan
Puncak Alam 3, Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Puncak Alam 3 and Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Bukit Kuching Tengah.
The exploration race consisted of five booths and 50 volunteers from the UPH654 course were chosen as facilitators for the games and presentation of materials to the participants as well as navigating the booth locations. For the materials, each booth prepared an informative brochure based on their respective themes. The game activities were also designed according to the themes chosen from the topics listed in the UPH654 course plan which are 5R Use of Medicine, Handling of Medicine, Know Your Medicine, Adverse Drug Reactions to Medicine and Medicine Compliance. All of the booths were located in the vicinity of the Faculty of Pharmacy building.
At the end of the activity, the participants were given a post-survey form to observe their understanding of the information that they have learned. To conclude the outcomes of the survey, 79% of the participants were interested in gaining knowledge on issues related to the quality usage of medicine. For the winners, we decided to evaluate the groups according to certain parameters such as teamwork, leadership, and contribution to the group. In conclusion, the programme ended positively. This programme was significant because it was one of the first physical events since COVID-19 came about, and its activities were also related to volunteerism and promoting proper usage of medicine
Written by: Sofia Umaira Binti Ismail
