LOOK closely at posters of several campaigns and projects and you will notice the ‘Bario project’ mentioned.
The proceeds of these events go to a singular large scale project by students and staff from Taylor ’s working together to help the needy children of Bario, Sarawak .
The 1Taylor’s-Bario Community Engagement Project, the brainchild of Dato’ Loy Teik Ngan, Managing Director of the Taylor’s Education Group, is the first of large scale charity projects aimed at providing development opportunities that can empower Taylor’s youth to create positive change and be conscious of the community they live in.
The Bario project consists of various fundraising activities from April to December 2010 that aim to collect money to build a hostel for SK Bario. Some kids in Bario do not attend school as it can be a four-hour walk from their homes to school.
Project Manager Banumathy Devi, Dean of the School of Computing and IT said, “Our involvement with the community will not be just restricted to building school hostels, but also in other ways engaging with the community in terms of capacity building and long term sustainability of the hostel and the community.”
On the effort to pull together all student and staff for the project, Banumathy said, “Instead of every school in Taylor’s organizing their own charity projects, a lot more can be achieved if we combine efforts to achieve one objective.”
The target for the project is to raise RM 250,000 by the end of this year, of which RM 200,000 will be used to build the hostel while the remaining RM 50,000 will go towards the installation of kitchen and sanitary facilities.
The project kickstarted with “Jog for Hope”, a charity run on 18 July along Jalan Sri Hartamas, which raised RM14,000.
The assistant organizing chairman, Teh Kell Jim said that initial response from the public was poor but they managed to hit and even break their target of 1000 registered participants within the last few days before the event.
The following event was the Charity Movie Screening from 3 to 5 August 2010 which featured The Pursuit of Happyness, The Exorcist and Children of Heaven. A total of RM 5,165.75 was collected. Besides that, the Eco Bazaar, a flea market selling clothes made from organic raw materials, was held from 9 to 11 August in the multi-purpose hall.
The Bazaar raised a total of RM2,200 for Bario. Since the project started, they have received a tremendous amount of support. “We even had staff who didn’t want to go for Jog for Hope, but they just gave RM100. One sponsor donated RM1000. Some bought tickets for the movie screening and gave them away to kids who couldn’t afford to purchase them.”
“That’s when you realize that Taylorians are a bunch of very caring people,” said Banumathy. Look out on the student portals and bulletin boards for other events of the Bario project.
By: Ng Ju Enn (26.10.10)
No comments:
Post a Comment