Its people like this that make our community stand tall, not those who rob and are in cahoots with temple priests like in Deva Gang in Kapar.
Taking children off the streets
By Naveen Mathew Menon
RAISING a family of four or five is daunting enough for the average Malaysian. Imagine then, having to take care of 30 children who are not even your own.
For M. Sivabalan and the management committee of Agathians Shelter in Petaling Jaya, it is a constant challenge to feed, clothe, educate and provide shelter for 30 underprivileged children.
Operating two homes in Petaling Jaya, the Agathians offer sanctuary to abandoned, orphaned, neglected, abused and poverty-stricken children. It has six volunteers and seven committee members.
From a young age, Sivabalan was encouraged by his father to put the needs of others before his own. For him, it is no easy task to juggle his work as an accountant, raise funds for the shelter, see to the running of its homes, spend time with the children and make time for his own family.
Q: Your education and career background?
A: I studied at St John’s Institution, Kuala Lumpur. Then I went for an accounting course. I am a partner in a small accounting firm in Petaling Jaya. As all four partners share the name Siva, we called the firm Siva and Co.
Q: Tell us about your family.
A: My father worked as a first-line manager in a hotel. He died seven years ago. I have two younger sisters and my mother is a housewife. One of my sisters is an accounting grad while the other is in secondary school. I got married last year. My wife is also an accountant.
Q: How did you get involved in charity work, and were your parents into it, too?
A: My parents were not part of any non-governmental or charity organisations. My father used to take the family to Convent Bukit Nanas. I was about 8 then. Within the school, there was a home for orphans, disabled and mentally-challenged people.
Every Sunday, my father would provide food for them and he did it for years.
The whole family would work together in serving the food. That’s how I learnt about charity. When I was in primary school, I did not understand what my father was doing. Once I was in secondary school, I understood the concept. I have been doing volunteer work since secondary school days.
Q: How did Agathians Shelter start?
A: About six years ago, a children’s home in PJ Old Town, the Annai Illam, had to be closed down. Some of us, donors and volunteers, who had been helping the home for more than a year didn’t want the children to end up on the streets. So, we decided we would form a society.
Even though I initiated the programme, it was a group effort and we got registered and set up a home here. This happened in December 2003. In the beginning, we had 10 children with one caretaker and we needed about RM2,500 a month to run the home.
So, about 10 of us decided to chip in RM250 a month and take care of the children without the need for any fund raising. We thought we would cut just one weekend’s expenses and donate RM250 each.
But once the home was registered and people got to know about us, we started getting more and more cases. One by one the numbers rose and today, we have 30 boys aged between 3 and 17.
Q: What support would you like from the public?
A: We need support for the children’s development. We have hired tuition teachers and volunteers but we need more volunteers who can coach the children.
We need people to guide us. We also need an administrator.
We get our funds from public donations and fund raising. Yearly, we need about RM180,000 to meet the operational costs. For a small organisation like ours, it’s extremely challenging to raise this kind of amount.
We need people’s voices. people from the media, magazines, newspapers and others who can be heard by the public in disseminating information about what we are doing and what can be done for us.
We are trying to move into a double-storey house in PJ. We are planning to acquire it so that in the long run, we don’t have to pay rentals which keep going up. We need about RM100,000 for this.
Q: What happens when you are short of funds?
A: Generally, we manage to raise the money but we have an understanding among the committee members that if there is a shortfall in any month, the committee members have to fork out the balance. There have been months when we managed to get only RM2,000, so the committee members had to chip in the remaining RM11,000. It is a burden and quite challenging to run the home when we don’t get enough funds.
Q: Can the public donate in kind?
A: Yes. They can donate food, furniture or anything else that is useable and in good condition. Whatever they don’t need, we can put to good use. We can even put up a jumble sale of the things we have in excess to raise some money.
Q: What does the future hold for these children?
A: There are two groups here. One group can go to college. Those boys who can’t get good grades or cannot get into college can take up vocational courses.
As diploma holders, they can choose from about 20 courses such as carpentry, electrical, automobile and others.
This will get them a decent job. All these vocational schools have tie-ups with companies, so job placement is assured.
We believe in teaching them to fish rather than giving them the fish. I drill into the boys that education is their key to a better life.
Q: Will you accept more destitute children?
A: Financially we are constrained, yes. But it does not mean that we are going to stop here and say we can only take care of 30 children.
Since, we are a registered society, we have been meeting with many other homes, seeing whether there are vacancies.
We can act as a central body which can co-ordinate with other homes to place needy children. We have a network of about 100 homes catering to the needs of various groups.
So if each home has only one or two vacancies, that still means about 100 to 200 needy children can be given shelter.
When people come to us for help, we know where we can get a place for the child if we cannot help them ourselves.
If people come across any street kids, orphans, children of single mothers or from broken families or abandoned children, they can contact us.
Our main criterion before accepting a child is that he has to be from a poor background. We want to help destitute and needy children.
Q: In bad economic times, how will your shelter cope?
A: Over the past few months, we have found that fewer people donate and when we carry out fund-raising drives, we are unable to achieve our targets. Our food costs have gone up by 20 per cent.
When times are bad, we cut corners like trimming our electricity and water costs but we try not to compromise on education and food. We do not have the luxury of having elaborate meals.
Lunch and dinner is usually vegetarian but four times a week we have non-veg.
We used to have chicken twice a week, but now it’s only once a week following the increase in prices. We feel bad cutting down on meat and fish for the children.
We are mulling about going into the catering business. We can cook and deliver food to corporate companies. If companies could cater from us at a “charity price”, it would be a great help.
Those who wish to help can telephone or fax 03-79541680 or email agathians_siva@yahoo.com
Agathians Shelter (Pusat Kebajikan Agathians, Malaysia) is at No 17, Jalan Tengas 8/8, Section 8 , 46050, Petaling Jaya, Selangor. For details call 03-7954 1680 or log on to www.agathians.org. All donations to Agathians Shelter are tax exempted.
The Star also wrote an article on the Shelter. Read it here.