Let's Recolor May 13 by Healing Malaysia through...

Dear Malaysians,

We are calling you to join us in Healing Malaysia.

Since 2008, for 5 years our country has been split into extreme partisan blocs where we throw hurtful words at each other. This has wounded many hearts and the vibrancy of our peaceful society, thus we need to heal ourselves.

Let us focus our energy on putting back love, respect, and dignity in this country. To achieve this, we need your help. To heal our country, we need to work hand in hand, heart in heart.

We have to change from within. We have to admit our mistakes. Many of us have erred and we must admit it. We first must forgive ourselves and then we must also forgive others. This is the time to reflect and instead of looking at what others should do, look at what we can do without expecting others to change at all. We take the first step regardless.

Everyone starts with themselves.

What is Healing Malaysia?

The Healing campaign starts now with the groundwork until we reach Hari Merdeka. We must stop resending, sharing, reposting any hate mails, any racist remarks.

We must be strong and find the strength to ignore them. We may think we are helping by posting and sharing but in actual fact we become the very agent for those people who are spreading hate and hurtful words. By ignoring them, we have already won.

It takes some time for people to embrace the outcome of the 13th General Election, let us give ourselves room for this. This campaign period is approaching us and we need time to plan the impact we intend to achieve when the time arrives.

With #SaySomethingNice campaign, we spend 17 days from Hari Merdeka to Hari Malaysia encouraging truce and showcasing the best about our nation. During this short period, we portray Malaysia in a very positive light; we appreciate Malaysia. This is the third year we are running this campaign.

For 17 days, we put aside our partisanship, we put aside our locality, we put aside our race; rich or poor it does not matter, we just be Malaysians. And we say positive things about Malaysia.

What can you do? Examples:

•  If you are a social entrepreneur, invite your audience to join the campaign.
•  If you are the Minister of Culture, feature a different Malaysian culture each day for 17 days.
•  If you are a sports writer, write about one great Malaysian sportsman daily for 17 days.
•  If you are a student, spend the 17 days telling your teachers how much they have impacted you daily.
•  If you are a radio announcer, have your audience talk about 17 wonderful things about Malaysia daily.
•  If you are a photographer, capture 17 moving pictures that represent the country and post one daily for 17 days.
•  If you are someone good with videos, make 17 short videos or movies about Malaysia and upload one every day for 17 days.
•  If you are from BN, say something nice about PR and vice versa.
• If you are from a government agency or a business organisation, find ways to praise those from other departments.

If you are from a non-government entity, put up a message board in your office and during the campaign period, have everybody write something nice about others on that board. 

This is our bid to Heal Malaysia.

It goes out to all. We hope our voice is heard by millions of Malaysians who are bloggers and vloggers, social media enthusiasts, schools and colleges, governmental and non-governmental organizations, local and multi-national companies, Malaysians abroad, social entrepreneurs, political and community leaders, and radio and television personas. This is a Malaysian project. This is our project.

On our part, we seek to:

• Act as the campaign coordinator.
•  Put up posters online; our blog, Facebook page, and Twitter.
•  Work with third parties to put up huge posters of #SaySomethingNice campaign on buildings.
•  Get school and college students to join in and participate using their own creativity.
•  Bloggers, vloggers, local celebrities, Malaysians abroad, and social media enthusiasts to participate and spread the message through social media and their writing.
•  Non-governmental organizations to promote the message.
•  Radio and television announcers to announce the message and encourage listeners to join in.
•  Companies and organisations to put up a #SaySomethingNice board in their offices for their employees to write nice short notes about each other.
•  Social entrepreneurs to give talks about this campaign.

The future, OUR HOPE.

We want to make this an annual event. We hope one day this campaign will be celebrated by all Malaysians in the same manner the Japanese celebrates Sakura Festival, how India celebrates Holi Day, or how Rio De Janeiro celeb-

rates Mardi Gras (minus the booze of course). This in the long run will help feature Malaysia and bring people from all over the world to come and see our Unity.

At zubedy, we have a team of enthusiastic young people who are willing to work but we need your help to make this project a success. Our team is small but we have big spirit and big hearts. Our spirit and hearts want to connect to your spirit and hearts. We need your support and participation. We are calling for your help and we hope you can join us for this campaign.

We can do this. We can make this country better. We can Heal Malaysia.

To know more about this campaign and to show your support, visit us at facebook.com/saysomethingnicecampaign

Anas Zubedy

Kuala Lumpur

This full page advert will be featured on Monday in The STAR