Kiwanis Club of Muar is founded on 2005 while Kiwanis Special Children Day Care Centre is established in Muar since 2010 to provide immediate help and support to the parents of special children. Catered for children with down syndrome, hyper-active, autism, dyslexia, slow learning and depression, especially those from single parent family. We provide a continuous learning environment for children and adults with special needs who got rejected by normal schools and society. In our Day Care Centre, we do not define the word “children” by age and we accept anyone with needs regardless of their age. We have children age of 5 years old to 50 years old now in our centre.
As a non-profit organisation, the centre was run entirely based on the donations from public. A nominal fee of RM200 per month for full day and RM100 per month for half day class was collected. The nominal fee is waived for family having financial problem.
The centre mainly provides training to special children to be independent by teaching them living and social skills. Training such as grooming, cleaning, washing dishes, laundry, speaking, planting vegetables, cooking, singing, dancing and hand crafting are specially designated for the children.
Our centre provides support for these parents through the challenges of raising children with special needs. We set up parent support group to provide counselling to the parents of special children. By sending their children with special needs to our day care centre, they can go back to work without worries.
Every year, our centre is being invited by schools, companies, and organisations for giving talk or sharing and even once invited for on air interview on aforadio. We bought children along when invited for talk or sharing. We hope by bringing out them to the eyes of public can open up the mind of public, increase their acceptance towards children with special needs and most important to achieve the impact of “life influences life”. Their performance may look simple and easy but it took them time much more than others to learn and perform, and thus always inspiring to the audiences.
PROJECT RESULT
Over 100 families and more than 10 single mothers have benefited from our project over the years, especially those who are financially challenged. We provide education to the group people with special conditions which are not catered for by the mainstream education system provided by the government and society in large. These group of people are usually neglected and forgotten by the society since young. They are deemed to have no future and is a burden to their family and the society.
We train and educate the special children, starting from the ability to take care of themselves in their daily life, providing them with skills to communicate with the public, training them to perform on stage in front of crowd, giving them the ability to become part of the society, contribute to the society, and work in the society.
Our Day Care Centre treat them as the family members, showing them the correct way of raising, communicating and live harmoniously with the children with special needs. We set up a parent support group to provide counselling to the family members, be proud of their special child and be brave to promote our centre by spreading the good works by word of mouth. We witnessed the change of parents, they willingly and happily to join together with their kids on our activities in public.
Due to the excellence of our children, we have been frequently invited by numerous business and education communities, including Hektar group for our children to participate in their events of speech contest and stage performance, Marina Bay of Tanjung Mas to provide performance, Rotary Club and Micron’s joint donation, performances at numerous temples, Lions Club, schools including SRJK(C) Sin Hwa, SRJK(C) Chung Hwa 1A, SRJK(C) Chen Ru, SMK Sri Muar, Chung Hwa High School Muar, Ant Art, Yoga groups and Zumba groups, M Harvest, DCI and JCI.
Companies and organizations were willingly to help us for fundraising and press media always publish our events because our children are inspiring to the community.
WHAT IMPACT HAS THIS PROJECT CREATED IN THE COMMUNITY/ NATION?
First, to the families with special children, especially the parents, we provide counselling and education to them to have peace with their inner self. We support them emotionally, tell them they are not alone and they deserved to be cared too.
By sending the children with special needs to our centre, parents able to go to work without worries and this reliefs their financial stress. We believe this helps to reduce unwanted family tragedy due to depression or uncontrolled emotion of the parents.
Then, we counselled the parents that to acknowledge their special child as part of the society and not to isolate them from society. In 2016, a UNICEF analysis of 15 countries revealed that children with special needs were likely to have never entered school in the first place. Such findings contain profound implications, not only in terms of unfair educational access, but also in terms of the life choices and opportunities denied to the children.
By engaging with the society, we increase the awareness of children with special needs, reduce stigma and promote social inclusion in public. We hope this could reduce discrimination and bullying for them.
HOW WAS THIS PROJECT HELP TO ADVANCE THE CHOSEN SDG?
Our centre ensures that the special group of children, who are usually neglected by our society, are given the special attention, education and training that they require, so that they do not drift away, and shall
become a valuable part of our society.
By increasing the awareness of existence of children with special needs in the public could reduce the discrimination, stigma and bullying in the community. Provide equal opportunities and access to quality education and social inclusion to those with special needs.
THE TAGLINE FOR UNITED NATIONS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (UNSDGs) IS “LEAVING NO ONE BEHIND.” PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW YOUR PROJECT HELPS TO REALIZE THE COMMITMENT OF UNSDGS FOR THE FUTURE. HIGHLIGHT ANY OTHER SDG(s) THAT YOUR PROJECT HAS DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY CREATED POSITIVE IMPACT TO PEOPLE AND SOCIETY
We hold strong to the mission that every child deserve the equal chance to learn, experience, dream, grow, succeed and thrive, regardless of who and where they are.
Our project helps ensure that the special group of children are not left behind, giving them a fighting chance of catching up and even achieving excellence in our society. Our project directly creates positive impact in providing quality education SDG 4, ensuring gender equality SDG 5, reducing inequality SDG 10 and partnership with other organisations SDG 17.
- SDG 4: we provide education for the children from kindergarten, primary, secondary and beyond.
- SDG 5: we assist mothers from single parent family by taking care of their special children.
- SDG 10: we ensure that the special children are receiving the equal opportunities to succeed in life.
SDG 17: with the common goal of making this world a better place, we have worked together with Hektar group, Marina Bay of Tanjung Mas, Rotary Club, Lions Club, Micron Semiconductor Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., numerous temples, schools including SRJK(C) Sin Hwa, SRJK(C) Chung Hwa 1A, SRJK(C) Chen Ru, SMK Sri Muar, Chung Hwa High School Muar, Ant Art, Yoga groups, Zumba groups, M Harvest, DCI and JCI.
