KUCHING: Last Saturday 19 May Kids Speak held an advocacy event to raise awareness and funds for three non-governmental organisations; namely, Hope Place Kuching, Sarawak Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA) and Dyslexia Association of Sarawak. The event, “SAY YES!” was held at the Granary Kitchen and Bar.
Kids Speak is a centre which trains children and teens in effective oral communication. As part of their advanced speech project, the senior students were required to apply the techniques they have learned in persuasive speech writing, story telling as well as using videos in their presentations. Besides that, they also had to do volunteer works with the three NGOs to obtain first hand experience in community work. In this event, the six students spoke about some issues in the community, the NGOs’ work and encouraged members of the public to contribute to their causes. The students were Nathan Ho, 14; Joel Lee,15; Tania Toh,15; Rachel Keng, 13; Aaron Ong,15, and Lloyd Toh, 14.
The total collection amounted to RM8,517 which included proceeds from ticket sales, loose donations, sales of children books, artworks and miscellaneous items. The donation was received by the representatives of the three NGOs namely Kelvin Wan, the founder of Hope Place; Datin Dona Wee, the president of SSPCA and Wallace Lee, vice-president of the Dyslexia Association of Sarawak.
Hope Place Kuching reaches out to 200 needy families with monthly income of less than RM500, OKU and single parents with many kids still schooling in Kuching, Santubong, Matang, Bau, Serian as well as even going to rural areas in Baram. Every three months, staff of Hope Place will provide essential items, repair works on dilapidated houses and give help to fire and flood victims as well as also giving charity talk at schools, colleges and universities.
Meanwhile, SSPCA runs campaigns to promote awareness of animal welfare to the public. At the event, Datin Dona urged the audience to neuter their pets and to be responsible pet owners. Members of the public are encouraged to help by volunteering at the shelter, fostering the animals and donating necessities.
The Dyslexia Association conducts intervention programmes and daily tuition classes for children with dyslexia as well as other learning disabilities. Currently, they are raising funds to build a Dyslexia Learning Institute which will offer more classrooms to the growing demand of many children with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.
If members of the public would like to volunteer or donate to the above NGOs, they may contact Hope Place at 013-5672775; SSPCA at 082-618 200 and Dyslexia Assocation of Sarawak at 082 242 900.
Hope Place carries out their aid deliveries once every 3 months because of the many families on their recipients list. Currently it supports more than 200families. For more information on how you can help, Hope Place can be reached at Hot line 013-567 2775 or 082- 505 987 (new number) from 8.30am -12pm and 2pm – 5pm (Mondays to Fridays) and Saturday 9am to 12pm only. Should the public be interested to make a donation, please do request for a receipt from the staff at Hope Place.For direct bank in kindly bank in into PersatuanKebajikanHarapan Kuching Maybank account number 5112-8900-1160.
