Global Buddies, Global Education Experience (GEE) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia International (UTMi) organized a beach cleaning event on 18 June 2022, Saturday. This event, conveniently named as Beach Clean-Up 2022, was held in Pantai Batu Layar, Kota Tinggi. A total of 35 participants, including committees, joined the programme from as early as 7.30 am until 7.00 pm.

The theme of this event is “Leave Nothing but Footprints”, which was reflected greatly during, and after the beach clean-up. It is also the first beach clean-up organized by Global Buddies, GEE and UTMi in the endemic phase of COVID-19. The programme started with the participants and committees voyaging to the location, i.e. Pantai Batu Layar, which is around 1 hour and 30 minutes, from UTM Johor Bahru. As soon as we arrived, committees set up and briefed on the beach clean-up to the participants.

Lunch was prepared beforehand and BBQ was prepared on-site by Mr. Raihan. The protocol unit then conducted an ice-breaking session, followed by a game. After that, participants were given free time to enjoy the beach, before we cleaned up and left.

Challenges that we faced while organizing this event were controlling the student movement and food management. In particular, most of the challenges fell under the management of protocol and logistic. However, with full cooperation from the participants and the great commitment by every committee member, the programme was held excellently on the appointed day. All of the objectives were achieved and the tentative was successfully executed throughout the programme.

Involved committee members involved were very happy and grateful to be given this opportunity to organize such a memorable program. On behalf of the organizing committee team, we would like to express our appreciation to all who helped and contributed to the success of the programme as well as throughout the preparation before the program. From this programme, we learned a lot and managed to meet a lot of people and we strongly believe that without the help of others this program could not be organized successfully.

In addition, it was such a great experience because we got to spend some quality time with amazing people at the beautiful beach while volunteering. Therefore, we want to thank UTMi for their assistance in making this event a success. To recap, the event was well-planned and successfully executed.