How Did We Get WHEE! ?

Before WHEE! was named what it is today, there was a long and tedious process to find the perfect name for it. It had to be something memorable, yet something easy to remember.

And here is WHEE!’s story.

“You’re applying to Dana Belia, so what are you going to name your project?” said my then partner-in-crime in eHomemakers, Jin. Unfortunately, Jin was not really helping the process of naming the project, as we were constantly ‘at war’ in the office… throwing paper and wires (and responsibilities) at each other.  I took a big sigh… how was I supposed to answer a question that I was trying to find the answer to myself?

Youth

Fun

English

Bario

Teach

Project

Malaysia

STRESS

As I sat there looking at the words I listed out, Jin looked at the clock. It was nearly lunch-time.  “Subway for lunch?” he asked. And I answered “WHEE!”.

The first logo. 

One tuna sandwich later, ‘WHEE!’ could not leave my head. What a great name for a project that would be! It was youthful, and easy to remember. Now it was just a matter of figuring out what ‘WHEE!’ would stand for. During the application process, I must admit that I never had much ambition for this project. It would be a one-off project, and that would be the end of it; so using WHEE!’s main objective from the Dana Belia grant, it stood for ‘West (Malaysians) Helps East (Malaysians) in English’.

Right now as you read this, what WHEE! stood for then probably sounded really weird. I think so too, but in that moment, it was perfect. We would only need to search around West Malaysia for youth to participate in the project, and that was that. This would have been the end of the story… but it’s not.

Partners for the project started arriving, and one of them so happened to be Curtin University, Sarawak. There was no way WHEE! could be WEST Helps EAST anymore, as East Malaysians would now be joining in. So once again, it has to be renamed.

If you thought ‘West Helps East’ was weird, I renamed Project WHEE! to ‘ProjecTweb’. Just like the first one, it used the main objective from the Dana Belia grant, and it stood for ‘Project Teaching Women English in Bario’. At this point I was already tired with project naming, especially since this would have been a one-off project like I thought it would be. (If you search on Urban Dictionary, ‘tweb’ are apparently the strings that hold helium balloons).   

What on earth were we thinking...?

To cut a long story short, once Daniel joined the project, it was decided ProjecTweb was way too weird, and we switched back to Project WHEE!. With our combined forces, we came up with the poem that Project WHEE! stands for today. The high5 I gave him was probably one of the most satisfying ones I ever had in my life, because we really accomplished something, and I was more than proud of it.

My best friend and ex-intern in eHomemakers, Yasmin Shah, is the brain behind our logo. After Dana Belia approved our project, she took on the grueling task to come up with the design. I must say that I couldn’t have asked for anything better. It’s simple, but it’s recognizable and fun. (and I like blue!)

I never thought we would get such an overwhelming response for Project WHEE!. In fact, our final 30 applicants are from all over Malaysia, there is even talk now about Project WHEE! having a second life after this year, and there is also possibility of branching out to other sites and missions besides Bario. So much for ‘West Helps East in English’ and ‘Teaching Women English in Bario’!.

Project WHEE! is now going to be bigger and better than I ever expected. Somehow it makes me nervous but I look forward to the future and what’s in store.

Project WHEE! was put together by youth who all had the same mission; to help serve the community. So a big shout-out THANK YOU to Jin, Yasmin and of course, Daniel whom without these three, Project WHEE! would have never been where it is today!

We the youth.

Helping those in need.

Exceeding expectations.

Empowering others.

-Rhonwyn-