Malaysian Mirror : Selling art to build rural school hostel

Malaysian Mirror : Selling art to build rural school hostel

KUALA LUMPUR – Art, a medium pertaining to the senses of beauty and aesthetics, now plays its role as a fund raiser for the building of a rural school hostel in Kiulu, Sabah.

The project, a collaboration involving some ex-students of the Mara Junior Science College (MRSM) in Kulim, Galeri Chandan and the Sabah Credit Corporation, intends to raise RM200, 000 for the SMK Tun Fuad Stephens dormitory.

Forty-four artists nationwide came together for the I Miss Him So Much charity drive, in memory of a Year Five pupil who tragically took his own life in March 2007 to ease his hardcore poor family’s financial burden.

The planned dormitory will be named ‘Asrama Donni’, after the young SK Kinarut schoolboy, Donnie John Duin, with the aim of providing lodging facilities for poor and disadvantaged students in Kiulu.
Art-for-sale charity drive

The participating artists had agreed to put up their artwork for sale to raise money for the hostel. Among them are Ahmad Fuad Osman, Bayu Utama Radjikin , Rafiee Ghani, Awang Damit Ahmad and Jasmine Kok.
The charity art sale started on Sept 30 and will end on Oct 12 at the Galeri Chandan uin Bukit Damansara here. It was opened by Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister Mukhriz Mahathir (pic), who is also president of ANSARA, the association of former MRSM students.

The project was initiated by an alumni group of MRSM Kulim who studied at the college between 1979 and 1983 that called themselves the ‘Killerbatch’.

“During our years in MRSM, our teachers constantly drummed into us that we are future leaders and that it was important for us to ‘give back’ to society.

“I am proud that Killerbatch has taken the call from our teachers to heart and carrying out this task that will definitely benefit the underprivileged students of SMK Tun Fuad Stephens,” Mukhriz said when launching the programme.

“Even though we had to eat instant noodles during our formative years while burning the midnight oil we still considered ourselves lucky since we did not have to walk hours to go to school” he told the delighted audience.

MRSM Kulim alumni chairman and head of the Killerbatch Asrama Donni committee Raja Ali Raja Othman said he found out about the tragedy during a business trip to Sabah.

“Like some of my former schoolmates, I too have a son of Donni’s age. The thought that someone so young could take such a drastic action rang personally with us.
Poverty problem in Sabah

“As a group, we realize that poverty is still a problem in rural Sabah and building a dormitory is a small yet significant step towards helping underprivileged students in the state,” said Raja Ali.

Present at the event were former MRSM Kulim principal Mydin Salleh and former English teacher Teh Sharifuddin Abdullah.

Recalling his days as head of the college, Mydin said: “I became the principal at the age of 29. I practically grew up with them (the students).

“During their school days, they were the hopeless ones. I’m really thankful to God that they turned out to be all right,” he beamed.

Cikgu Teh, as Sharifuddin was fondly called, said the students who made up the ‘Killerbatch’ group were bright but extremely playful.

“They have since become exceptional citizens,” he said.

As of last month, more than RM120,000 has been raised and construction work has already started at the site.

SMK Fuad Stephens, with about 1,300 students, is the only secondary school in Kiulu, a district about the size of Perlis state, about 40km west of Kota Kinabalu.
Walking to school through jungles

The district has a population of about 60,000 people whose main sources of income is derived from agricultural activities.

Due to poor living conditions and the underdeveloped nature of the hinterland, many students have no other means of going to school except by foot through jungles and across rivers.

A recent participation by Killerbatch in the ‘Chief Talker’ online voting contest organised by new mobile prepaid operator Tune Talk Sdn Bhd, yielded RM50,000 for the hostel project.

Another fundraising event that Killerbatch intends to carry out is the re-staging of the play Ghazal Party Queen, which is set to take place in December.

The play was first staged in 2004 by Angkatan Karyawan Aktif Kuala Lumpur (Angka) at the Malaysian Tourism Centre (Martic), formerly known as Dewan Tunku Abdul Rahman.

The play was written by Killerbatch alumnus Mohd Rodzi Abdullah and won the Cameronian Awards for Best Original Script in that year.

Malaysian Mirror : Selling art to build rural school hostel