Rumah Shalom.

The house is located at Puchong, a 20 minutes drive from Talylor's Lakeside University. 

Dating back to 1997, it was set up then to provide shelter for children. The children there came from all walks of life, mainly those who were raised by single mother's and came from broken homes. The children there are as young as 4 years old and the shelter will accommodate them till the age of 19.
Reverend S. Arulandu, or better known as Pastor Arul brought up Rumah Shelter. The intuition that initiated him to start up the shelter was a flashback of the time when he met some children that were mischievous and up to no good, some that were into petty crimes. Most of the people he knew gave up hope on those kids and couldn't be bothered much about the kids.

However. Pastor Arul sees them in a different light. 

He actually talks to them and tries to understand them. He believes that there is something good beneath every single child, it's just that they were brought up in a harsh and different environment, which is the reason why they were brought up and act differently from other kids. Basically, they were just misunderstood by the society and hence, they were not given the opportunity to prove themselves that they are better than what people percepts them to be.

Naturally, Pastor Arul have a passion for children, to educate them regardless of where they came from, so that they can grow up to be better people. So that is how the home was set up and it's already been providing the children care as well as education, to teach them self-worth and to be better citizens.  

Recently, a few of the Project Management team members visited the shelter. Most of the older children there were really friendly and introduce themselves, while the younger ones were quite shy and look timidly at us. We manage to warm things up by talking to them and playing Uno cards. 

Then, we met up with Pastor Arul and chit chat with him about Rumah Shalom while he goes through the Memorandum of Understanding. There is a certain light that ignite in him when he talks about the children and one can see from there how much is his love for them, especially when he talks about how he brings them up. It sure did made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside :)

As we were leaving the place and saying bye to the children, I can't help but feel happy that I made someone's day that day just by making them smile and laugh when we played Uno :)

To anybody that is reading this post now, if you have any enquiries, fret not to ask us Project Management team about it.
You can also contact Pastor Arul by 012-2965979.

If you want to drop a visit to the shelter, the address is :No, 1, Jalan Tiong 5,
Bandar Puchong Jaya,
47100 Puchong, Selangor
Malaysia .

Cultural Day

On 2nd of August, the children in PPKKCTM have just experienced different culture and custom of several countries in a day! This day, the children went Kazakhstan, United Kingdom, United Stated of America, Hong Kong and Taiwan without leaving Malaysia, and this day is known as cultural day.

In the afternoon, the international volunteers have display their country related item, such as flag, country’s background, tourist attraction spot and more through presentation form and also display physical goods. When the children visited their station, the volunteers will explained in detail to the children to allow them to understand country beyond Malaysia. They shared their country’s food with the children so that the children can have a taste of it instead of showing them pictures. They also display some of the traditional costume and the miniature of their traditional house.

Through the cultural day, the children in PPKKCTM not only able to expand their geographical knowledge beyond the horizon, but to expose different tradition and culture that displayed by these international volunteers. Not only that, these international volunteers also able to sharpen their presentation and communication skills. Cultural day is definitely a meaningful event that benefits everyone!

The volunteer explained the country details to the children.

The volunteer shows his country flag to the children

Volunteers explained the characteristic of the historical building through post card.

The children "visiting" the country!!

Story Telling Competition

25th July 2009 is the day for the children in PPKKCTM to shine!! This day, these children are prepared to show their talent in front of all the audience because it is story telling competition! The objective of the story telling competition is to build up the confidence for the children by standing in front of the crowd and tell a story. Besides, the children able to sharpen their presentation skills and not to forget their ability to write a story on their own to show their creativity!

For the past few weeks, the international volunteers have put in lots of effort in teaching and assisting the children in English subjects. Throughout the past few weeks, many exercises have been done. From these practices, the children learned new vocabularies and correct grammars and with their utmost creativity, they prepared their own speeches.

After the well preparation and guidance from the international volunteers, it is the time for the children to share their story. Every participant has given out the best of themselves and they received the warm appreciation from the crowd. The winners of story competition have received prizes to serve as the motivation and encouragement. It was a great learning experience for the children, as they learn and grow. The judges, who consist of PPKKCTM’s learning advisors and visitors, were impressed with the learning progression of these children. Quoted from one judge, Mr Morhan “they have improved drastically since the last time I saw them” and the director of PPKKCTM, Mr Cheah also regard TOMORROW as the project that maximize the children’s capability and improvement.

The story competition was a success event, as we witness the children’s development in all area such as personal development and their English command. It was a great pleasure to know that TOMORROW assist the children in these essential areas as we serve back to TOMORROW’s mission of creating “A Colourful TOMORROW for the Children of Today”!

The participant is telling her story.

The audiences are giving their full attention to the participant.

The judges are having hard tine to give marks because all participants is equally good!

Story Telling Invitation

Story telling competition aims to increase the children self-confidence through speaking in front of public, improve their English language and to show their creativity as these stories wrote by the children themselves.

Lets support and vitness the growth of these children!

Day: Saturday
Date: 25th July 2009
Time: 1p.m – 3 p.m
Venue: PPKKCTM

Flow of Event
10.00 a.m Introduction of event by MC
10.10 a.m Story telling session
11.20 a.m Counting of marks by judges
11.30 Winner announcement and award giving ceremony

Judging criteria
1. Creativeness
2. Deliverability
3. Vocal
4. Completeness

TOMORROW 1st Anniversary

AIESEC TUC recently celebrated the 1st anniversary of their own Project Based on Exchange (PBoX), ‘TOMORROW’ on 3rd July 2009 at Lecture Theatre 4, Taylor’s University College . TOMORROW is a child’s rights community based project at a local orphanage, Pusat Penjagaan Kanak-kanak Cacat Taman Megah. TOMORROW aims to develop the orphan children into high achieving and self-motivated individuals. International volunteers from various countries participate in this project by conducting daily tutoring sessions with the children and facilitate in educational activities.

TOMORROW’s 1st anniversary was supported by Ms Angela Pok, Senior Manager of Student Affairs of Taylor’s University College, Mr Cheah Siong Nyin, Trustee of PPKKCTM and Mr Richard Tong, TOMORROW’s learning partner and other 45 stakeholders. This event highlighted various passed event such as story telling competition, motivational camp and other achievements to the new stakeholder, besides recognizing the effort of the team who worked and organized those events. For one year, TOMORROW had done a tremendous job in developing the children both academically and emotionally. Many events were organised to motivate and encourage the children to better individuals. One of the events organised was story telling competition which aims to improve the communication and linguistic skills of the children. Apart from that, inline with our vision to develop children into high achieving individuals, a motivational camp was held at Berjaya Hills Gold and Country Club, Bukit Tinggi. The motivational camp was the main event of TOMORROW 2008 and we are extremely grateful the motivational camp instilled positive characteristics in the children. The children not only experienced a new and better learning environment but also were even more motivated to strive for excellence in their life.

“TOMORROW had definitely made a big impact in the children’s lives, in academic and discipline”. As told by Mr Cheah Siong Nyin, Trustee of PPKKCTM, the children improved wholly especially in their academic performances since TOMORROW started. The children received ample attention and guidance from the international volunteers to produce good grades in school. With the love and passion showered to them by the international volunteers, the children felt more secure and belonged thus allowing them to express and show their true potential openly.

The backbone of the TOMORROW is the international volunteers. The international volunteers’ commitment and dedication towards TOMORROW has ensured the project to be a huge success. The current international volunteers find it extremely rewarding to tutor the children and make changes to their lives. They felt humbled watching the children’s happiness despite the fact the children are alone and parentless. The international volunteers chose to be part on the main project mainly to be in close contact with children to help them improve themselves.

Gulchera from Kazakhstan has been actively involved in charity and fund raising events for children in her country. Her passion for children was the main driver for her to participate in TOMORROW. Other international volunteer like Emily from Hong Kong loves to be surrounded by children due to their contentment and laughter. An aspiring teacher from United Kingdon, Gideon hopes TOMORROW is able to provide him with strong teaching skills before he begins his career as a teacher soon.

We hope with endless support from the team, international volunteers, AIESEC and the public, project TOMORROW will continue to grow to become a bigger and more notable community service project. Together we hope to build “A Colourful TOMORROW for The Children of Today.