YLC Cheque Presentations

After having a promising Charity Night 2010 on 02.07.2010 held at Gosh, the time has finally come for the Kuala Lumpur Young Lawyers Committee (KLYLC) to honour its promises by presenting the donations to the respective homes.

As advertised, this year the KLYLC has adopted 2 homes for donation and they are Marginal Youth Centre (Rumah Victory) and Selangor Handicapped & Mentally Retarded Children Centre. Both the Centres were presented with a cheque for RM20, 000.00 each.

Rumah Victory shelters 31 children of whom largely are either homeless or came from a single parent family whilst the Selangor Handicapped & Mentally Retarded Children Centre takes care of mentally arrested persons regardless of race and age.

On 28.08.2010, the committee members of KLYLC together with Pushpa Ratnam, the Chairperson of the Kuala Lumpur Bar Court Liaison Committee visited Rumah Victory. We were greeted by one Mr Loh and after handing the cheque over to him, he brought us for a quick tour of the Home. The children were extremely happy when they have visitors in their midst and some almost immediately took out their board games and invited us to join them. A few of us gladly obliged and spent around an hour chatting and playing with the kids. Although most of the kids in Rumah Victory are victims of broken families, Rumah Victory isonly filled with joy and not a moment of sorrow. The ambience was robust and noisy until its time when we bid farewell. We could see the change of emotions of the children and in fact one of them held onto our hand tightly and asked “when will you all be coming back again?” of which only attracted a silent response from us.

We then fixed 04.09.2010 to visit Selangor Handicapped & Mentally Retarded Children Centre. This home takes care of children and adults who require special needs and largely comprises of persons with various disabilities such as down syndrome, autism, physical disabilities and even blindness. This home is relatively quieter and the patients needed more care than the former home. As such, several live in caretaker are employed to take care of their needs such as bathing, feeding and providing basic education.

Whilst in the home, Ms Susila relayed to us various incidents which happened to the patients one of which we were informed that after the demised of a patient in the home, the parents have the audacity to refuse to claim the body of their child on the pretext of being busy with a tight schedule. It ended up by the Home initiating a donation drive for the sole purpose of taking care of the funeral expenses.

We hope by the proceeds collected from the annual Charity Night, the KLYLC can continue to do its part in contributing to the less unfortunate group and generate goodwill among lawyers.

Prepared by Lai Chee Hoe

Photos courtesy of Johana Rosli and Melissa Dass