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Sponsor-A-Child-For-School 2023

Appeal 1

Al-Ikhlas Hope Society is once again running a campaign to fundraise towards the running of Al-Ikhlas School, a kindy and primary-level UNHCR-registered learning centre serving Myanmar/Rohingya refugee families living in the vicinity of Taman Sri Murni, Batu Caves. The centre also offers a space for the community to use in other ways outside school hours, eg. a place for the community to gather and access food & other assistance, for health & capacity-building workshops, mobile clinics etc.

We are appealing for a higher amount in 2023 than in previous years, i.e. RM70 per child per month or RM840 per year, as we have expanded operations now to a third shopfloor unit (on the 2nd floor) and have taken on more teaching staff to better manage the 150+ students attending the school. This should cover 70% of each child’s school fees, the rest to be collected (where possible) from the students & families themselves. Funds raised will go towards paying the rental of the premises, the staff & teachers’ salaries (most of them from the refugee community too), utilities as well as other maintenance requirements.

Your support for this initiative would be hugely appreciated. Contributions can be made to:

Al-Ikhlas Hope Society (Maybank)
5648-0165-4621
Reference: SponsorChild

For enquiries, please contact Liza at 016-4201276 or email alikhlashopesoc@gmail.com. Please also visit our Facebook for further information and updates.

Alternatively, donations can be made via our Give Asia page here.

Why Sponsor the Education of a Refugee Child?

Refugee children in Malaysia are not just displaced from their home countries but have additional challenges while living in Malaysia, including the ability to gain education. They are not allowed to attend public schools; private education institutions are also not easily accessible, not having the right identification papers and are usually beyond their means. As For UNHCR-card holders, the durable solution options available to them are either to be repatriated back to their home country when all is safe, to be resettled to a new home country or to integrate within the host country (i.e. Malaysia). However, this waiting time is a long one (could be 10-20 years or more); without education, the lives of these children – and their families – would be an impasse. Community learning centres such as Al-Ikhlas School were set up to provide refugee children a chance to get at least the basic skillsets and knowledge – reading, writing and communicating as well as counting - to overcome the obstacles they and their families would have ahead of them. Help us help them attain progress during their time here in Malaysia. The education they receive will increase their potential to gain a brighter future for themselves, strengthen their resilience and ability to adapt to new environments, as well as become active and contributing members in society one day, either in Malaysia or wherever else they go to after their time living here. Help us make their time in Malaysia a useful and meaningful one

Appeal 2

Al-Ikhlas
School Meal
Appeal

Al-Ikhlas Hope Society launched this appeal (previously referred as the Breakfast Appeal) in June 2022 to try and solve two problems at Al-Ikhlas School.

The first issue, Struggling Single Mums. We have quite a number in the community and their situation can be pretty dire. To illustrate, recently a few teachers and I popped over to visit S, a sweet & pleasant Rohingya single mum to two of our students. She is one who is usually well turned out and pretty independent, earning a living by sewing clothes for others in the community. Unfortunately orders have been dwindling lately and she’s struggling to pay her rent. She tries hard… she told us she’d accepted work sticking little “batu” on scarves, earning 50 sen per scarf, getting through about 40 scarves per day so earning a measly RM20 each day. When we were visiting, she had been peeling onions… earning just RM5 per 5kg bag, taking her 1-2 hours per bag - backbreaking work! There are other far more lucrative jobs out there - some youth in the community are being recruited by delivery companies, processing packages, earning RM85-100 per night! Unfortunately, that kind of work is not suitable for a single mother of two young children - she needs something she can do from home. There are others like her - working hard but barely able to keep things together and not able to venture too far out and/or at odd hours being the sole parent. And communication is often a barrier. S is probably one of the better ones, having had some education and able to speak/understand a smattering of Bahasa. Minimal reading or writing though.

The second issue… School Meals, or the Lack of it. One of the things we’ve always thought to do for some time now is to provide school meals - eg. good, nutritious breakfasts - for the Al-Ikhlas School kids. Many of them have only one proper meal a day when their parents are back from work. In the mornings they come to school hungry or just get cheap junk food/drink at the nearby kedai runcit along the way. They often also skip lunch. This affects their ability to absorb lessons taught. The parents are either too busy, do not have enough money to spare, and/or know little about the importance of good nutrition.

Over the past year, we have invited single mums to cook a meal a week for the children, allowing them to earn and ensuring that the kids get a meal at least once a week at school.

To continue on with this programme, we hope to raise RM2,000 per month or RM24,000 per year. 80% of the amount will go to the single mums involved and for the ingredients. The rest will be used to pay staff to manage the programme, InsyaAllah.

Your support for this initiative would be hugely appreciated. Contributions can be made to:

Al-Ikhlas Hope Society (Maybank)
5648-0165-4621
Reference: Meal

Sports & Recreation Appeal

Appeal 3

Some of our teen girls have been attending Saturday morning netball lessons this past year, coached by ladies of the Sports Club of the Bar Council, support we are eternally grateful for. Additionally, our teen boys are also attending football training organised by one of the Rohingya youth leaders near the school every Sunday morning. Seeing their faces light up at both these sessions, we are even more convinced now by how important it is for us to continue organising these sports & recreational activities for these kids.

The students and their families live in tiny flats, within tightly-spaced building blocks with hardly any open/green space to run about. They attend school within shoplots, jam-packed with other students, most of their time spent sitting down with no PE in their timetable. Furthermore, they’re expected to be adult-like soon upon reaching their teens, especially the girls. This after having gone through a childhood already much restricted, deprived of play. Their parents would be too busy generally having to work long hours to keep on top of things, with not much time or money to spare for outings and treats for their kids. Things we totally take so for granted. MHPSS (or Mental Health & Psycho-Social Support) is much needed in refugee protection, whereby in a protracted situation as they are in in Malaysia, sports/games are greatly recommended for refugee children. We can understand more than ever now the value of this advice.