|
|
|
PUSAT Kebajikan Hope Worldwide Kuala Lumpur is an
organization that reaches out to the urban poor.
Program director Darick Wong, 35, said Hope Worldwide is present in more than
100 countries and started its operations in Kuala Lumpur in 1996, focusing on
children, health, education and volunteerism.
"In Malaysia, we help to change the lifestyle of poor families by providing them
with quality healthcare and education through support from our network of
volunteers," he said.
In 2000, the organization started a clinic in Sentul to provide free
consultation and medication to poor families and now have 9,000 patients in
their database. |
"We chose Sentul because it is one of the areas with a high concentration of
poor people. We take in people within a 5km radius from the clinic who have
an annual household income of between RM9,000 and RM12,000 with a family of
four or five," said Wong.
He added that the organization would also consider other poor people on a
case-by-case basis.
 "We're
not a big organization so we can't really reach out to help everybody," he
said.
The clinic operates every Tuesday, Thursday and the second and fourth
Saturday every month.
They also have a pediatric clinic for the poor in Penang.
"Since we started the clinic, we zoomed in to more specific needs of the
people and so we started this school sponsorship program.
Wong said he once encountered a woman in Sentul who ran away from her
abusive husband and barely had enough to feed her five children.
"School was starting the following Monday but they did not have any school
uniform and have been going around begging for help," he said.
This incident prompted him to start the school sponsorship program which now
provides free school uniforms, shoes, school bags, books and stationery to
54 children from hardcore poor families.
"We do set the condition that the children must progress in school.
"If not, we would stop the sponsorship," Wong said.
As he got to know the children better, Wong found out about a group of
children who were stealing items from shops and supermarkets.
 "They
would tell me about how their pictures were being put up at those places. I
realize that this was an excitement that they looked forward to every
weekend so I started the activity-learning program," said Wong.
Ever third Saturday of the month, volunteers would take about 50 children
and organize activities like games, sports, art and craft, excursions and
even movies outings.
From there, he realized that many of these children had low self-esteem and
no confidence and a lot of them could not speak English so they started a
reading and writing program.
Besides one-to-one learning sessions with volunteers, the children also have
singing, story-telling and multimedia sessions.
"After the three-month program, they can stand in front of an audience of 50
to 100 to read a story in English," said Wong proudly, adding that a
mini-library is in the works so that children can continue reading after
they have finished their course.
Wong said their main concern was to help families break out of the poverty
cycle by changing their mindset.
"Many parents forego their children's education because of poverty,
especially the eldest child. That's where our food program comes in. We
provide groceries monthly to families so that they can invest what they earn
for their children's education," said Wong.
A panel of judges consisting of donors choose the recipients and evaluate
them from time-to-time to make sure they are still eligible as there are
many people on the waiting list.
The organization also focuses on volunteerism by having a pool of 300-odd
volunteers for their activities, including their own fundraising projects.
The volunteers even made time recently to contribute 1,000 hours in just one
afternoon to 10 charity homes, including Rumah Charis, Shelter Home, Rumah
Victory and Rumah Keluarga Kami.
Wong's hope for the organization is to be able to reach out to a bigger
community with the help of volunteers, donors and corporate sponsorship.
"I also hope that the group of children we are helping would graduate and be
the first batch to break out of the poverty cycle. I hope we can get more
funds to give them scholarships in future," he said.
Source: The Star Online
Author: Tan Karr Wei
Date: May 20, 2008
|
